New Xmen: Childhoods End fanfic
by thebookbug5
Summary: A new mutant has come to the Institute and joins the New X-men. Helix alert sometime in the very near future
1. Chapter 1

**Authors note: I've had this account just sitting there doing nothing for too long. So here, this is New X-men Childhoods Ends fan fiction. And no, I do not own any characters that you haven't heard off. This makes me very sad. I do own my OC, though. Oh and this is set somewhere after Children of X-men and before Messiah CompleX.**

Chapter one

Cessily woke up screaming. Though this time, she was alone. Since, the attack, Laura and Julian had been keeping a nightly vigil by her bedside, in case anything like this ever happened. Which it normally did. Whether they had finally decided that they liked eachover she didn't know, but considering the state of the bathroom and Laura she really hoped so.

She decided she wanted some ice cream. Of course she couldn't actually eat the ice cream, but it would be nice to just hold it. So she got out of the bed and tip toed to the door. Though why she was being quiet, she didn't know, because Santo slept like a rock. Oh, maybe that because he was a rock.

Cess nearly passed Laura and Julia sitting on the floor next to Miss Frost office. Maybe they had been up to something, Cess thought with a half smile. Either way, she was curious.

"What are you doing?" she said, a bit louder than she had meant. They both _shhhhed _her. She stood there tapping her foot, waiting for an explanation. She half hoped that they had been caught at something, as to avoid another scenario like 'the bathroom incident'. But what if they broke up, oh god, she thought, panicking. Then they may have to rebuild the institute...

Her reverie was interrupted by Laura finally saying something.

"A girl who claims that she is a mutant was found on the door step of the mansion this morning. There is something wrong with her scent. It is very varied..." This could be classified as a speech for Laura. She didn't speak much. She was a genetic clone of Wolverine, who according to Pixie was 'officially the scariest mutant EVER.'

"She...she smells like death." This did not bode well. The last person Laura had sniffed and said that had died only a short time later. Cess exchanged looks with Julian, though they affect was lost as Santo and Victor came trampling down the hall, followed by Sooraya. Well, Santo was doing all the trampling down the hall. It must have been hard to be quiet if you were made of rock, though he didn't seem to be making any effort to be even remotely quiet.

"SISSY!" It appeared Victor and Santo to be having a wrestling match in the middle of the hall. Despite everyone's efforts to quieten them down, they just continued to try and kill each other and destroy the school until Cyclops stepped out of his office, with an odd, weary expression on his face.

The look on his face is what stopped them fighting.

"May I ask what you are doing here?"

"Eavesdropping." Laura answered curtly.

"Laura!"

"What?" She said to the shocked faces, which, up until a few seconds ago had been mouthing _no no no shut up! _

"Oh well, you'll know soon enough." Cyclops sighed, and opened the doors to a stony faced Emma. Well, nothing new there.

After hearing this collected thought, Emma's slinked into her diamond form and stepped aside. Standing behind her was a scrawny girl with black hair, though it had a strange purple gleam. Her eyes, almost black were shadowed with fatigue and she was wearing a bright purple tank top over a black roll neck.

"This," Cyclops said, gesturing towards the girl, who had looked down to her feet. "Is, Desdemona Trigiani, you _new _team mate."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: yes, there is going to be some Helix in the next chapter chapter. I hate Sofia (Wind Dancer, Julian's previous girlfriend.) with a passion, so she will probably show up at some time and there will probably be a fight between her and Laura (X-23, who in the comics has a tentative relation with Hellion.) And there will be blood. Sofia's blood. But in this chapter, it introduces my OC, who is a necromancer. Basically she can raise the dead. Blah blah I do not own any of the other characters they belong to Marvel which makes me very sad because I want them. Okay, I'll stop now.**

Chapter 2

Everyone stared at the girl in shock. She- Desdemona- seemed wary of their looks and uncomfortable standing next to Miss Frost. Then again, who wouldn't be? This was group thought, and it only added to Miss Frost black expression.

Finally when the silence was interrupted the questions came all too fast.

"Does Nori know about this?"

"What's her power?"

"What kind of name is Desdemona?"

"She smells like death."

The last comment was from Laura, she was obviously unnerved, randomly sniffing the air. Julian squeezed her shoulder and she stopped, though it seemed no one noticed, for Nori had made her own dramatic entry.

Noriko Ashida was the leader of the New X-men and had not been in a very good mood lately. Perhaps this was because she had been dumped, rejected and irritated beyond relief. So when she stopped in front of the crowd, which had parted because of the electricity radiating off her revealing the new girl, you could pretty much see the angst radiating off her.

"WHO IS THAT?" she screamed and every one took a step back, apart from the new girl. She took a step forward. They weren't scared of Nori, they were scared she was going to electrocute them.

As no one answered, Nori calmed down a little bit. Though only a little bit, though because the New X-men were still stepping back.

"Surge, this is Desdemona Trigiani. And if you will proceed to The Danger Room, she can show you what she can do."

Danger room? Either she was really bad at controlling her powers or they were all in danger of death. Due to the events of the previous months, the New X-men were convinced that the second one was more likely.

Cess caught up with Julian and Laura, who were talking about something that Cess didn't understand, but decided to stay behind because it looked intense.

She made a mental note to check the bathroom later.

The Danger Room had taken a beating in the danger room since Stryker attacked. But unluckily for them, it was one of the first things to be repaired. Which meant more training sessions. Joy.

The new girl seemed nervous and slightly disturbed, though she wasn't the only one who was disturbed. Nori, for one, looked like she could murder someone, though this was not an unusual phenomenon. And Laura was sniffing freakishly. It looked like rather funny, like she had woken up with a cold and lack of tissues. Or smelled something really bad.

The New X-men crowded to the side, some curious, others murderous. (It's not hard to guess who this was.) The girl stood in the middle of the room, waiting for a signal to start from Cyclops, which he gave in the form of a nod. She closed her eyes and when she opened them, they were pitch black. Her hands were surrounded by what seemed to be tornadoes. Everyone hit the flaw and covered their heads with their hands, though still looked at the girls.

Shadowy forms came floating out of her hands and started moaning, transforming skeletons in shreds of clothing and looking eerily familiar.

The dead students.

Oh, crap.

The girl was floating high above the ground now, until she was knocked down by a bolt of green light. The zombies turned to dust, blowing She gave a shriek and fell to the floor, muttering quietly. Cyclops gave Julian a look that could burn a whole through his head. Which he could do, if he took his visor off.

Julian shrugged and said "What? Zombies freak me out."

Cess giggled. "You're afraid of zombies? You-"

Now Cess was the receiver of the death glare. This silenced her, but Laura had something to say.

"So that is why she smells like death. Because she is death."

Cyclops turned his red gaze to Laura, who was sitting, hugging her knees against the wall.

"Not quite, Laura. But close. She has the mutant power to bring the dead back to life. And-" he turned to where the girl had been previously standing, but now had completely disappeared from the room. "-Gone."

"She has not left the building. She is currently in the main office. She is trying to leave." At this point Scott had sprinted out of the room, leaving the New X-men to the mercy of an angry Miss Frost. But judging from the look on her face, it seemed that no mercy was going to be more likely.

Either this meant that every happy memory they had was going to leave there heads in the next five seconds or mega training session.

Crap.

To many people it seemed that Emma Frost liked to make people suffer. Specifically small children and the elderly. Oh and New X-men. The limped out of the Danger Room little after five in the morning and she strutted back to her office where Scott was still conversing with the new mutant.

She sighed inwardly as she walked into the office, to see Scott standing up and the girl sitting in the chair in front of the desk, her head resting in her arms on the desk, blowing hair out of her eyes.

"Emma-"

"Oh I already know her story, my dear. She ran away from home when her powers manifested because her parents despised her mutation and has been living on the street for the last two years. But did she tell you that her family despised she is wanted for stealing and attempted murder? Or the fact-"

Dess as she was known to her friends (of which there were not many) sunk down into her chair. She had suddenly gone extremely pale and still.

"Can't move, my dear? Good, because I believe you and I need to have a little talk." Emma walked to a vacant seat and sat down.

"Scott, here is willing to try you, but he has been extremely...flexible with the students lately. Your power is unique and very strong, but it is also uncontrollable. Though Scott has decided to-"

"That's enough, Emma." Scott had gotten to his feet and was walking to the now squirming Dess. He put a hand on her shoulder, which made her stop writhing momentarily. "As of now, she is on the team."

"What is her name?"

"Phantom."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Okay, so I am going to put the Helix in this chapter. It has been stuck in my mind for ages so yeah. This is just for my own entertainment, as sad as that is. I have just realised that my OC is somewhat similar to another, existing mutant Wicked. Oh well, they aren't the same person. **

**Oh and by the way, Laura can out mood-swing all of you. She needs a mood ring. Badly.**

**And finally, I must add a stupid comment- IN YOUR FACE SOFIA! Sorry couldn't resist. Okay, I'll shut up now.**

Chapter Three

Julian Keller had been pacing the corridor outside his room for about an hour, wondering whether he should confront Laura about the scene with Nori, and telling her that he hadn't kissed Nori, she had kissed him. This could prevent possible death but it could also mean that he could be killed on the spot. _Damn._ But then he would have to explain to Laura that he liked her. Not just liked her but _like _liked her.

He finally decided that food was the answer. He grabbed the list of reason why he should/shouldn't date Laura and made his way to the pitch black kitchen, using his telekinesis as a light. He got a shock when he saw the new girl sitting at the kitchen table in the dark, a small pot of ice cream in front of her. She was staring intently below her, a glum expression on her face.

He yelled, but she appeared unaffected.

"What the hell are you doing?" He said, as she sniggered.

"Helping myself to your stock of ice cream. What are _you _doing here?"

"I live here."

She obviously had no answer to that, but her eyes focused on the piece of paper. He abruptly shoved it into his back pocket.

Suddenly she was gone from her seat at the table, leaving swathes of smoke behind her and reappeared behind his back, picking the list out of his pocket. He reached out to grab her, but she had teleported to the other side of the room.

"So...Reasons not to date Laura...can kill me, killed other people...Sofia..." He had tried to grab it back from her telekinetically, but now she was floating to the ceiling shadows circling her hands and feet, somehow keeping her aloft.

"And reasons to date Laura...hasn't killed me yet...great ass...-"She looked at him with a bemused expression at this point-"and finally, oh this is good-boobs, that's it. I fear for this girl."

Julian finally managed to wrestle it off her and then sunk back to the ground, though she remained, floating above the ground.

"So, who is this Laura? I'm assuming she isn't just a figment of your imagination."

"You know Wolverine?"

"Yeah."

"She's his clone."

"Wow. Suppose she's kind of aggressive then?" She asked, raising a single eyebrow.

"Uh, yeah. She was an assassin."

"I have a question," she said. "If you bust a move, will she kill you?"

He grunted.

"You haven't tried, have you?"

"Well excuse me if I like my body parts."

She shovelled some ice-cream into her mouth and he went to the fridge, in search of something to eat.

"Wait a second," she said, putting her spoon down." Are we talking about Laura Kinney here?"

Julian stopped rifling through draws momentarily to answer.

"Yeah, why?"

Dess laughed, and placed both hands down on the table, making a tiny skeletal rat scamper across the table. Her eyes were stained black for a minute. "Ooops. You know she killed almost half of the restless dead?"

Julian replied with one word. "Shit"

Just another reason to not date Laura, and yet he just couldn't resist.

"Well, I'm going to find a place to sleep. Nice talking to you." She got up, throwing the empty ice cream container into the bin. She turned to leave but was stopped when he asked her a question.

"Hey! What's your name?"

She turned in the door way, puling at one of her sleeves in her black roll neck, which was covered by a purple tank top. "Dess."

Despite the fact that his conversation with Dess had almost no meaning, somehow Julian had benefited from it. Well, the Reasons not to date Laura list had. But with a new found courage as he walked from his room to the danger room, but had disappeared by the time he had got there.

Surprisingly enough, Cess was waiting in the control room with Dess viewing Laura from above.

"Oh, hi, Julian! This is Dess, remember? You're probably here about Laura. Well calm her down a little bit." Cess pressed a button and the scenery below them changed to what they Danger Room looked like when it wasn't trying to kill them.

Cess flicked her hard metal nail against Dess skull. She had earphones on and appeared to be snoozing. When she received the flick she yelled, woken from her nap.

"AAAahhh!" She said as several shadowy figures escaped her hands.

"Well, I'm going to go and see Laura." Julian said, stepping into the elevator that led to the danger room.

"Oh, wait! Don't talk about the list-!" Dess called after him, rubbing where Cess had flicked her.

As if he wasn't nervous enough, he had two teenage girls watching from above. _Fuck, _he thought.

Laura was panting in the middle of the floor, her claws out. He approached cautiously, because she was an assassin after all.

"So, Laura...are you finished yet?" He could just about hear the girls above him shouting _Lame_.

"Yes, I am. Cessily tells me you wish to talk to me about something." By this point the inside of Julian's head was in high panic mode.

"Umm... well," _just get it out_, he was thinking to himself. "I didn't kiss Nori, Nori kissed me," he blurted it out all at once. He then started to rub the back of his neck furiously.

"I know that, Julian," Laura said in a measured voice. Though her back was facing him, he could see a muscle twitch in her cheek.

_Oh god, _he thought, _maybe Dess told her about the list...I am dead-_

"Well, I uh like you Laura." Julian said, rubbing the back of his neck a little less intensely.

"I like you, too, Julian." _This is getting me nowhere. I bet she knows about the list-_

"Well I mean I, uh, _like_ like you Laura." Part of him was willing to run away right there and then, but the other, more dominant told him to stay right there.

She turned round, suddenly angry. He may have backed away a little bit. The only thought running through his mind at the moment other than _RUN! _Was _yeah, definitely the list. _

"I can't be here! I am putting you all in danger. They will find me. They will find _you_!" She yelled, using a claw to point at him. He leaned back, just to avoid being impaled.

And all of a sudden she burst into tears.

Panicking, he grabbed her as she fell to the floor, sobbing. She fell against his chest, tears streaming down her face.

"Shhhhh, it's okay, beautiful. Ummm, don't cry..." he trailed off, realising that Cess was probably eaves dropping on them right at that moment. Laura had stopped crying now and was hugging him.

Yes, Laura was _hugging _him. That was nearly unbelievable.

She stood up straight, and instead of walking away, she kissed him.

Now, that was _unbelievable. _Unbelievable, yet enjoyable.

He could hear muffled cheers above him, yet he ignored them and focused on the task at hand.

"Wow, Laura really is the queen of the mood swing." Dess, said, leaning back in her chair, looking at the scenario below them.

"Nope, I just gave a few...helping pheromones." Cess replied, smiling slightly.

"Evil, yet brilliant." Dess was obviously impressed.

"Indeed."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Okay, so yeah, this is mainly for my own entertainment. And if you're wondering Zsaji (I got so disappointed when I found that the spellchecker didn't understand alien) is one of Colossus's previous girlfriends. **

**Also, I kinda wanted to resurrect someone to keep my sister from killing me but not too happy so yeah. Don't kill me with pitchforks because I made someone die again.**

Chapter Four

Nobody liked Training Sessions. That was a fact. Instead of actually training, they mainly consisted of Colossus throwing them against a wall one by one and yelling "YOU ARE ALL DEAD!"

He pushed Laura against the wall, who collapsed onto the floor in a crumpled heap, on the top of almost everyone else apart from Dess, who was next on the hit list. She backed onto a corner, as he advanced on her. She teleported out of the corner, leaving Colossus chocking on the smoke.

Dess re-appeared right above him, keeping herself in the air. Concentrating hard, mostly trying to stay in the air. He swatted at her like a fly, sometimes catching the tips of her feet, which was almost enough to push her out of the sky.

"AHHHHH-huh?" She yelled. Her eyes turned black and her hands, focused just in front of Colossus who was standing, entranced, became enshrouded in translucent grey smoke.

"Do you remember Zsaji, tin-man?" She said as a white haired woman materialised in front of him. She was crying and looked exhausted and weak. Colossus looked devastated. He fell to his knees as the woman fell back.

"Okay, NOW!" She yelled at the pile of healing New X-men. One telekinetic blast from Julian threw Colossus into the wall. Colossus, however, realising that he could not touch the ghost without actually dying he turned on them and started smashing them into the walls, though with fewer effects this time.

Dess had given up on the psychological approach she had adopted earlier and was back to reanimating random dead things and creating an army to take down the Colossus. Though he swept them away with a swish of an arm like they were nothing more than an annoyance, they did appear to be slowing him down.

Just enough time for Nori to electrocute him.

"Didn't you hear? Metal is a great conductor for electricity," Nori said. She looked a little mad, as Colossus groaned in pain. He seemed to have lost control of his power, occasionally reverting from steel to his normal form.

"Nori. Nori, STOP!" David, who had not been doing anything apart from trying to get Santo to roll off of him in the pile, ran up to her and threw her out of the way. She lost concentration and Colossus, returned to his metal form, stood up and said for had probably been the 34th time that day said "You are all DEAD!"

"Is that your catch phrase or something?" Dess asked, pushing herself up from her slumped position. Her nose was bleeding. She wiped it away with her sleeve, which was already torn and dirty.

"Not yet we aren't" Laura said, coming at him from behind. She threw herself into Colossus's back, though with very little effect. Apart from the _click _as her jaw broke. Blood soared sideways. Julian came rushing to her aid.

"They seem unusually motivated today," said Scott said to Emma, viewing the training session from above. Emma was in a particularly bad mood. Her arms were crossed other her chest and she was scowling. This was not unusual, though.

She did not respond to him. She just stood there, giving her scowl everything she had.

"Emma, you have been like this for three days. It's getting a little old." Scott felt like he was talking to a statue. He would do anything to get a response from Emma. She obviously knew this too.

And when she finally did speak, she was not happy. "That girl knows little but death and destruction. She is responsible for deaths of too many innocent people. She is _dangerous."_

Emma was talking about Dess. She seemed to be Emma's new target. Laura had been the previous student who Emma wanted out of the school. It seemed like Dess had the honour of having that position now.

"I swear you said exactly the same about Laura not a long time ago."

"Even so, she has to go." Emma said as she strutted out of the room.

When training ended, each and every one of the team was nursing some sort of injury. Josh was exhausted of healing various head wounds, spinal injuries and broken legs. But there was something he needed to do.

He caught up with the new girl, who was limping, as her broken ankle had not been healed yet.

"Hey, uh, let me heal that for you," he said as he bent down to her right foot, putting his hand on her torn boot. A burst of golden light exploded from his hands as they came into contact with her broken ankle.

"Oh, wow. Thanks," she said, testing out her ankle as he got up. Josh felt drained. It was taking him a lot of energy just asking this.

"So, you bring back the dead, right?" He said, trying to sound innocuous but failing.

"Yep." She said shortly. She sounded suspicious.

"Well, I was wondering whether..." He said, looking around for a distraction, unfortunately there proved to be none.

"And you were wondering whether I could bring back Laurie Collins for you." Dess looked unsurprised.

"Yeah."

"Well, I can try..." She trailed off. Dess was anything but sure about this, but Josh didn;t seem to mind. He beamed when she answered.

They didn't go back to the danger room, because it was a mess after a training session. Half a wall had fallen in and the temporary machines that they had installed had been given a good thrashing. Instead, they went an empty class room that had been long since cleaned of its desks. They didn't bother to turn on the lights

"Well, uh, stand back," she said, motioning for him to move to the other corner of the room. He did, leaning against the wall.

Her hands splayed out in front of her, Dess focused all of her energy through her hands. _Laurie, Laurie, Laurie, Laurie, come here Laurie, I know you there. _Her eyes had turned completely black and streams of greyish energy came out of her hands, forming a person shaped shadow in the middle of the room.

The shadow was beginning to look a little more like a person now, you could make out the hands and feet, but it was costing her dearly. She was moaning and struggling to keep the flow of energy coming out of her hands.

But the think was taking shape. First a skeleton forming upwards, skin was flying onto the bare bones, revealing a girl with a pink roll neck and straight blonde hair standing in the middle of the room looking extremely scared.

"But I was... I was dead...Josh?" she squeaked as she saw him standing over in the corner. He seemed to be about as much shock as she was. Josh came running over to her as Dess gave her one last blast of energy, but appeared to be clenching her fists muttering something in a crouched position.

"Laurie?" Josh muttered as he hugged her. "Hey, look I can heal your hand!" He pulled away the bandages and started muttering various parts of the wrist under is breath. Laurie watched, amazed as her hand begin to look healthy again.

"AAAAAHHH" Dess screamed in the background, disturbing Laurie and Josh who were making out in the corner.

"Dess?" Josh asked, looking other his shoulder to see the girl curled into a ball against the opposite wall.

Josh broke apart from Laurie, who was looking curiously towards Dess, who had stopped screaming but was now holding her hands out in front of her, wearing an alarmed expression.

"Are you okay?" he said as she yelled "STAY AWAY FROM ME!" A bolt of grey light shot from her hands, making him stagger back. Laurie was looking positively scared now, which was expected, because she had just been resurrected by someone who could possibly be mentally unstable.

Dess was staring into her hands, entranced. Instead of recovering to their normal state after using her powers, they were scorched and smoking.

"You're hurt," Josh said, stating the obvious. Dess bit back an angry remark, trying to fend him off, for seemingly no reason. When he finally did manage to make contact with the blistered palms, Laurie screamed in the background. Josh, not knowing whether to continue to heal Dess or go and see what was bothering Laurie.

He chose the second option, because Laurie's screams were becoming more frantic by the moment and Dess's hands seemed to be fully healed.

It would have been better if he hadn't turned.

Because Laurie was fading away, leaving a pile dust where she had been standing just moments ago. He tried to run to the ashes that was his dead girl friend but was restrained by a burning in his hands.

"Urk." Dess said, as her powers flared up, knocking both of the unconscious.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: This picks up where the last chapter left off. **

**Did you know there was an X-23 one shot? I read the first 5 or 6 pages and it was so good, but I'm finding it really hard to find. I want to read it so bad. It had Jubilee in it, who is one of my favourite characters. I NEEEED IT.**

**Heheh. Last week's X-force. I don't think I should be laughing. Don't worry. I'll cry later. **

Chapter Five

Considering the scene in the Danger Room, Julian had decided that it was definitely time to ask out Laura. It was nearly dark outside, and he had been dithering about this all day. It only occurred to him as he walked out of his bedroom door, that he had no idea where Laura was. Cess would know, he thought.

He couldn't find Cess either. She wasn't in her room, the common room was deserted and the only person in the kitchen was Anole, who didn't know where everyone had gone either.

This left only one logical answer as to where they were: they had all been abducted by aliens.

What? That kind of stuff happened around here all the time.

Then Julian realised that he had not checked outside. Just as soon as stepped out of the door he saw Cess sitting under a tree, unoccupied.

He jogged up to her, surprised to see that she was holding a large hardback book to the side of her head. The back cover had a large dent in it.

"Cess, do you know where Laur-?" he said, only to be interrupted was Cessily screamed.

"Watch out!" She yelled as a plank of jagged wood came hurtling towards them.

"Shit!" he muttered, using his telekinesis as a shield.

Cess pulled the book down from the side of her face, which now had a large tear in the dust jacket.

"Laura's over there. Be warned. She's making fire wood." Cess said, pushing hair out of her eyes.

"Good luck!" She yelled as he walked towards the source of flying branches. Sure enough, there was Laura, attacking the lower branches. Piles of sawdust were scattered around her feet.

"So, um hi, Laura..." He said. Immediately his mind was filled with only one thought _this was a bad idea. _

Laura stopped butchering the tree just long enough to say hello, nothing more.

"So, I was—" Julian was hyper aware of Cess giggling in the background. _Thanks for the motivation, Cess! _He thought dryly.

Before he could finish his sentence, Laura yelled, pointing a clawed hand behind him.

"Julian, watch OUT!" she yelled. He turned to see several withered teenagers, their eyes glowing black, their clothes in tatters and their skin grey and flaky.

This had to be the work of the new girl.

Cess let out a scream that could have been heard from miles away. She had morphed her arm into flat paddles and was batting away the zombies. This appeared to be quite affective, because the zombies were falling to the ground with a _thud_.

Laura and Julian were using a combination of telekinesis and claws to fend off the zombies.

"So," Julian said, sticking a hand out and channelling his powers through it. Several zombies went _smack _to the ground. The zombies bared a startling resemblance to the dead students. This definitely had something to do with the new girl.

"Laura! Do you want to go out with me sometime?" he said, finally managing to get the words out. He smacked several more zombies away from them.

Laura tensed behind him, but only briefly. She began sending the zombies back to where they came from right after that.

"On a _date?" _she said, impaling a zombie girl. It gave a quiet _oof _and fell to the ground.

"Uh, yeah." Julian said. Cess was slowly edging towards them, obviously trying to eavesdrop.

After a while (and several dead zombies) later, Laura answered. Julian had convinced himself that he was going to be rejected by that time. He could just imagine Santo's face...

"Yes. I would like that." She said, haltingly. He was almost not sure if he heard correctly at first. Trying to stay calm, he sent several of the undead flying.

Cess, however, had enough excitement for both of them.

"Oooh, finally!" she said, batting away another zombie. It started hobbling around in a circle and finally fell backwards to the ground. "Awwww, there is nothing more romantic than—" Cess did not finish her sentence because the zombies had adopted a new approach: pounding on their backs. This was only slightly more effective than there last approach.

"Why are we ever still here?" Cess said. It was amazing; in a short amount of time she could turn from calm and nice to completely neurotic. "You can fly for god's sake! GET US OUT OF HERE!" she grabbed Julian's arm and was shaking it vigorously.

"Calms down, Cess!" He said grabbing both of them around the waist and launching himself in the air. Concentrating on going through the open kitchen window, he heard the _snikt _of Laura's claws retracting into her knuckles and instead of going through the window; he went through the wall next to the window.

_Oh, shit. _He thought as he went through the wall. He was going to have to pay for that. And the roof in Laura's room... And the Danger Room floor...

"I am going to kill Dess when I find her." Cess muttered as she landed in a pile of rubble. She stood up and brushing the remainder of the wall of her shirt, walked to the door.

"I can see why you're afraid of zombies now, Julian." Cess said standing in the doorway.

"I'm not-" Julian said, indignantly. But Cess had marched down the hall before he could finish his sentence.

Leaving him and Laura alone. Hmmm...

_Excuse me, _Miss Frost said, who had obviously been rifling around in his private thoughts. _Mr Keller, that this is a _school.

Cess was on a rampage. She was secretly terrified of zombies. She was going to find Dess and ... well; she didn't exactly have a plan yet. But plan or no, she was definitely going to yell at her.

Her room was vacant; the common room was contained the rest of the student body and she interrupted Laura and Julian making out in the kitchen.

Outside was still crawling with the undead that seemed to have no idea on what to do with themselves.

After checking nearly every room building she found Dess in one of the empty class rooms. However, it would be very hard to yell at her without looking like a complete idiot, because she was passed out on the floor, next to Josh. Neither looked that peaceful.

Cess could not think of a reason why they should be in a dark class room on the floor. In search of answers, she flicked Dess's right temple with a hard metal nail. She immediately awoke, with a small yell, but apparently it wasn't loud enough to wake Josh.

"What the hell, Cess?" she gasped. Dess rubbed furiously at the side of her head.

"Well, firstly what are you doing here? And secondly, what's with all the zombies?"Cessily said, her voice growing steadily higher as she went on talking.

"Zombies?" Dess said, turning her head to the window and saw the hoards of living dead milling around. "Oh crap." She aimed her hands towards the window and a concentrated look washed over her face. The zombies outside, who were currently engaged in beating each other up, fell down to the grounds in piles of dust.

"If only you were there an hour ago. Actually, what were you doing an hour ago?" Cess said, narrowing her eyes at the unconscious Elixir.

"Resurrecting Josh's dead girlfriend for him. Remind me to never try that again." Dess replied, also narrowing her eyes at Josh.

Cess had no answer to that, so she subtly changed the subject. "Well, Julian asked Laura out." She blurted out.

"Well that took a long time." Dess remarked, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Oh I am getting too much entertainment out of this chapter.**

**Please note that this has not been edited, so yeah. I feel its crap. **

**There is a copy of Mercury Falling somewhere in my house. And I will find it. **

Chapter Six

"So why can't you come and eavesdrop with me? It was your plan after all." Cessily said to a gloomy Dess. They were in an empty corridor outside the dorms.

"Miss Frost gave me a deadly fear of doors as a punishment for trying to bring back Laurie." Dess answered glumly. She rested her head on her knees and sighed heavily.

"Wow, that's ... inconvenient." Cess didn't quite know what to make of her Miss Frost bizarre torture of her students, lately. She was certainly angry, that was for sure.

"I know. I have to close my eyes whenever I leave the room. So my leaving this house is virtually impossible." Dess ranted, she gave another heart sigh, blowing her frazzled hair out of her eyes.

"Hey wait ... do you think you could get it on video for me. Without footage of doors, please. Or even better; convince the Cuckoos to help me?" Dess mused. Cess gave an distracted _yeah sure_, and walked in the distraction of the common room, were a several loud crashes and shouts were echoing from.

"Wait! Don't leave me here! I'm surrounded by doors! Cess!" Dess yelled at her. She sounded positively terrified.

Cess really hoped that Santo and Victor hadn't gotten into another fight. She really didn't want to scrape Victor of the wall ... But surprisingly enough, Victor was nowhere to be seen and definitely decorating the walls. Instead it was just Julian and Santo and a broken couch.

"Santo, what did you to the couch?" Cess knew it was Santo because next to Julian, he was responsible for all the breakages in the institute. Both building and its students. For example, last Wednesday he had sat on Victor and broke his 'good' arm.

"Santo destroyed the—" Julian said, through gritted teeth, though he didn't finish because Santos grating voice interrupted, he was laughing hard enough to create an earth quake.

"Did ya hear, Cess? Keller's got a date with X! We think he got about two days left to-AGHHH!" Santo was not given the change to finish his sentence, because Julian had telekinetically pushed him through the wall. As if he didn't have to pay for enough damage already.

Through the hole in the wall Cess could see Nori and David, who had obviously thought that they had had some privacy to argue and yell at each other. Santo had exploded onto the floor, leaving rubble at they're feet.

Nori, finger pointing at David, looked down at her feet where the stones that were Santo were flooding towards one point in the floor. When Sato finally reformed, he did not look happy.

At this point Cess wondered whether there was actually going to be date, rather than a funeral.

That was when she decided to escape the room.

Cess liked to think that she was very skilled at eavesdropping. So far she had managed to stay elusive, though she had had to douse herself with two types of perfume so Laura didn't pick up her scent. She wasn't entirely sure that this worked but Laura didn't seem to be effected.

Though the downside of being cautious that she was nearly choking on all the perfume she was wearing.

So here she was now, trying to breathe properly through the poisonous gas surrounding her body. She had to wonder whose perfume she was wearing and whether they had a death-wish or not.

Cess eyes snapped towards them and surprisingly enough, Laura was _smiling_. Despite having known her for only a few days, Dess had joked that this was so rare that people thought it was a bad omen. Laura was pretty twisted, after all.

Still, Cess thought it was rather sweet. She once accidently gave a noncommittal _aww. _ The guy sitting next to her gave her what had probably been the thousandth odd look as someone was impaled onscreen. He edged away a little bit. By the time the movie ended he had jumped two seats and any dreams that Cess had about becoming a spy thoroughly crushed. Though she had managed to remain hidden from the two people she was eavesdropping on.

Maybe the perfume move worked.

However, her streak of luck soon ran out. Caught on a near deserted street with Laura and Julian heading towards her and no dark alley to back into, she panicked and spun on the spot, trying to look interested in the display of a shop that sold wedding bouquets and other things of that sort.

_Please ignore me please ignore me, hey wait maybe I could melt! OH no, then I'll get stepped on ... _Cess mind was racing a hundred miles an hour. She tried to look casual but apparently failed as she heard someone calling her name.

"Cess? Is that you?" Julian said as her irritating self-conscious said BUSTED. Trying not to cringe, Cess melded her face into a smile and said in her signature happy voice.

"Oh, hi, Julian!" She turned back to the window and improvised a little more. "So do you want the blue or the pink?"

Backing away slightly he replied "what the hell, Cess?" Laura, who was silently clinging to Julian arm, sniffed the air.

"For your wedding, silly! I want to be a bridesmaid! So does Santo, but he won't admit it!" Cess beamed, pleasantly surprised at the horrified expression on Julian's face. This probably came from envisioning Santo in a dress.

Either way, her speech had succeeded in scaring them off, as he departed with a "Uh, well, bye Cess!"

That was fun.

It now occurred to her that it would be a great time to make an escape. Her mission achieved, it was unlikely that they were going to get abducted and deep-fried (Cess shuddered at the thought. She knew from experience that this was a very unpleasant experience to say in the least.)

The only problem was that she had no way of getting out of here. The bus wasn't going to come for another hour, she could not fly or teleport and had almost no money. Though she did have her phone. Cess picked it out of the pocket of her jacket and scanned down her contact list. Sooraya could fly; kind of ... Pixie was another option, though Cess was reluctant to use her as transport. Dess could teleport and fly, apparently, though due to her fear of doors she was not an option.

And there was no way that she was walking.

Randomly, Cess dialled a number, and hoped to god that they would pick up. Please, please, please, please, one thousand pleases, she thought, oh god, I don't want to—

"Hello?" said Pixie over the phone. Dammit!

"It's Cess ... is Sooraya around?" She said, really hoping that Pixie would have forgotten who she was. Fat chance.

"Uh no, but like – " Pixie started but Cess managed to get a word in.

"Do you know where Dess is, then?" Cess asked, really hoping that she was. Fingers crossed. _Please, Please, please, I'm begging you!_

"She says she's afraid of doors ..." Pixie trailed off. She sounded extremely unsure, for some reason.

"Well, tell her to climb out the window; I need to get out of here!" Cess was becoming frantic now, feeling uneasy in the deserted street.

After a series of muttering in the background Pixie passed the phone the phone to a tired Dess. This may have been down to a visit to Miss Frost's office earlier that day. She wouldn't say anything about it, which lead to some speculation about whether she had any happy memories left.

Dess sighed. "Where are you? And why can't you take the bus? I suck at flying, so don't blame me if I drop you."

Cessily looked around for some identification of where she was. When she found it, she quoted it into the phone. Dess hung up with a bitter _well this better be worth it._

Someone wasn't in a very good mood today.

While waiting, Cess went into the wedding store and bought a chocolate bar with her remaining money. Though she did not need to eat, she really did like chocolate.

When she had succeeded in opening it, Dess _swooshed_ down and grabbed it off her and Cess was lifted of the ground by the neck of her coat.

"Hey! That's mine!" Cess relinquished the chocolate. She noticed that Dess was wearing a bike helmet. A thought crawled across Cess mind that sounded like a panic attack and a news report rolled into one. _What if I fall, _she thought, imaging herself splattered across the pavement. Sure, she could just remould herself, but she still didn't fancy the experience.

"So how'd the date go?" Dess asked, dodging a building and pulling herself up higher, remembering Cess at the last minute.

"Oh. Really well. It was so cute!" Cess started, describing the events to Dess, who was listening intently and trying to dodge buildings at the same time, with mixed results.

"Though they did see me once – hey watch out!" Cess yelled.

"Told you I suck at flying. Should've got Pixie to do it." Dess muttered through gritted teeth, concentrating on flying straight.

"NO! And isn't that Pixie's helmet. You really shouldn't steal stuff, you know." Cess lectured.

"Well, you did go and eavesdrop." Dess retorted. She looked at the trail of smoke she was leaving behind her. The ghost seemed to be all too willing to carry her for miles and obey her every whim. Sometimes they called My Queen. At times like those Dess wondered how much sanity these ghosts had left, though she enjoyed all the worship nonetheless.

Miss Frost had suggested therapy to her. This was her response to almost everything that came out of Dess's mouth.

Cessily, meanwhile was nattering on how happy Laura looked and this snapped her back to reality.

"Wait a second ... you did say Laura looked happy? As in butterflies and rainbows happy? Happy _happy?_" Dess yelled, astonished. One moment of distraction had them crashing through the gates of the mansion.

"Yes, happy happy and why'd you do that?" Cess shouted crankily. Dess shrugged, lowering them to the ground with a smooth landing Cess didn't think she was capable off.

"Might as well make an entrance." Dess shrugged again. "So did something bad happen after she smiled? Like spontaneous combustion or something?"

Cess put her head in her hands. She just wouldn't let that theory go, would she?


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Meh. **

**Thanks for all the reviews/faves and stuff. I really appreciate it. **

**La. Writers block. **

**Sorry for the delay. I have this really boring thing called school.**

Chapter Seven

Miss Frost, having become tired of all the damage to the building had declared that Thursday 'repair day'.

"Any part of this building you break, you repair." She had said to the students telepathically after Victor had pushed Santo through a closed window for the second time that day.

Because of this, the common room was surprisingly empty. Cess wandered around the hallway, looking for Laura, who only ever broke robots in the danger room. Sooraya never broke anything, though Dess had been saddled with the job of fixing the gates. Or rather, her army of undead had been saddled with the job and all she had to do was oversee them.

Cess found Laura glaring at the nastily glaring at the television in the TV room. The newscaster was reporting in a dull, officially manner about several deaths in mutant town.

"_In the last week as many as seventeen deaths have occurred in mutant town. Once a raring central for all mutants, after the decimation it was left with few residents, almost none of which left they're homes." _A woman with short neat blonde hair motioned to the screen on her left, showing several shrivelled bodies.

"Ew." Cess said, wrinkling her nose, leaning over the side of the couch.

Laura, having sensed her there a couple of minutes ago replied.

"They believe it is the work of a mutant." She said simply and flicked off the television. Cess didn't notice though, she was disturbed by the pictures of the bodies. Funny, she thought. They didn't usually put stuff like that on television. Her overactive imagination saw an uncanny resemblance between the bodies and what had happened to Laurie's hand.

_No, _Cess mentally shook her head. Out loud, she said "huh?"

"I did not say anything." Laura responded curtly. Cess slide onto the sofa next to her.

"How did the date go?" Cess asked, though she already knew. She was just trying to make conversation.

"It went very well, thank you." Laura said stiffly. She seemed to be in an even less talkative mood than normal today. Cess wondered what was up.

"Are you okay? You seem kinda-" Cess failed to finish, for Laura had began sniffing the air manically.

"No, something is not right." Laura said as she rushed out of the room. Cess got up and followed her, hoping for an explanation.

When Laura finally stopped, it was at the front door and she was looking downright spooked. Cess attempted to wave a hand in front of Laura face, but the door got in the way. She smacked her hand against it. Stupid door, why couldn't you have just stayed shut? She thought.

After seeing what was outside, she had decided that she would have definitely preferred it shut.

Because on the door step was a withered body of what looked like a man lay on the door step.

Cess gasped. Though she had seen enough people for a lifetime, it was still shocking when she saw one. Even if it was a person she didn't know. Laura, though, didn't seem shocked, just mildly disgusted.

"Who is it?" Cess whispered. Her hands had fluttered up to her mouth. Laura sniffed some more, though this time it only looked like she had a mild cold.

"I do not know. You do not know him either." Laura said, somewhat insensitively. This was about to change. "It will be okay, Cessily." Cess head snapped up from its position staring down at the dead guy. _Wait a second ... I thought I was supposed to do the comforting here ... there is something seriously strange going on here! _Laura gave her an awkward smile.

"For fucks sake! I will pay you if you get your minions to do the wall for me!" Julian's agitated voice made its way to them. It was obvious he was talking to Dess, for she was the only one who had an army of ghosts at her command.

"No ... wait, did you say you'll pay _me?_" Dess seemed rather excited at the concept.

"I'll give you twenty bucks if you get the ghosts to do it for me." He replied, Cess could hear them coming closer. She knew they would look bad if they were caught standing near a dead body, but with Laura's track record it would look pretty bad if they ran away from it too.

"They'll do the inside for ..._ fifty._" Dess trailed off as she saw the dead body. She did not scream or cry, just went extremely pale. Julian, however, had something more to say about it.

"What the hell?" He yelled as he saw the withered body. He then turned to Dess. "What did you do?" He said, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her slightly. Dess shrugged him off and turned her attention to the cadaver.

Dess seemed to have her voice back, though she did still look quite green. "Nothing! You were bribing me the whole time!" she held her hands out in front of her.

"Cess ... Laura, what happened?" Julian turned to the traumatized Cess and an indifferent Laura. He said this slightly more tenderly than to Dess, though she didn't notice, she was nudging the corpse with her foot. T was like she expected it to move, or something. Which it did, after a while. When it let out a strangled moan she gasped and took a leap back behind her.

Laura, Cess and Julian turned to see the struggling corpse. Cess issued another gasp and also jumped back with a "Kill it!"

Dess, at a loss on how to use her powers to take its spirit, stretched her hands in front of her and focused all her energy into making it into a plain corpse again. Unfortunately, she achieved the opposite result. It was now a fully fledged zombie, full to the brim, with, well, _brain deadness. _It struggled to get off the floor.

Laura let her claws slide out and punched them into the zombies withered foot. Dess sighed angrily and bit her lip. Cess and Julian were shouting at her. "Everyone just SHUT UP!" She screamed, surprised to see that everyone did as she told them. She stared down at the undead thing, of which Laura's numerous efforts to kill were showing – it had stab marks all through its t-shirt and the throat had been cut.

Convinced that if she looked at it hard enough, then the dead now somewhat smelly zombie would go back to where it came from. And surprisingly enough, it worked. She blinked, confused.

"Wow, the term death stare just became literal." Cess remarked, equally as surprised. Julian looked down right shocked. Dess couldn't usually use her power without provoking some kind of disaster. They were brought back to reality by the _slikt_ of Laura claws retracting back into her hands. She pulled herself off the floor silently.

A blank and confused quiet settled over them. After what seemed an hour, having nothing to do but stare at the blistered body, Cess spoke. "So, what do we do with it? 'Cause it's really starting to stink." She pinched her nose with her fingers and arranged her face into a grim expression.

"We should tell Logan." Laura said, decidedly. "Yes, it is beginning to smell." She added, agreeing with Cess. Together, they marched in with no regard about who was going to take the body inside.

Well, it certainly isn't going to be me, thought Dess as she launched herself into the air and pushed herself around the side of the building with a call of "Enjoy digging the grave!" and was subsequently not seen for the rest of the day.

"I get all the worst jobs." Julian muttered to himself as lifted the body into air via telekinesis and tried not to breathe in the scent of rotting corpse.

**...**

Later that day, after they had found Wolverine and told them what had happened, been integrated ("Mind-raped!") by Miss Frost and buried the body without proper service or any idea of who he was, Julian and Laura were sitting in the common room. They had no idea where Cess was, and Dess was probably snoring away in a tree somewhere. She could fall asleep anywhere. Pixie was hovering above one of the sofas and amazingly, she was silent. Sooraya had sat down next to Laura.

"So, does anyone have any idea of who did it?" Julian asked quietly. It took a while for someone to answer because of what had seemed to be a year long silence. Well, if you didn't count Pixie's nattering, but most of them had zoned out before the end of her first speech.

"I caught their scent. A man. Odd he smelt like ... death. He was wearing a suit." Laura said vaguely, though she kept pausing, trying to remember what the scents had shown her. Pixie stopped her background chatter to listen and then started again immediately after.

"Maybe it was purifiers! Or the place that, uh made you!" Pixie said at speeds that the human tongue had probably never reached before. She squeaked half way through and grabbed the edge of the couch and hid behind it, like something was going to jump out at her.

"Wait, how can you smell like death?" she continued, from her hiding place. "Does it smell gross?" Pixie had become side-tracked and was obviously panicking. "What if it's one of us next time?" Everyone had blanked her voice out by now.

Cess, looking less nauseas than she had in the doorstep entered the room. Laura and Sooraya shuffled up on the couch to make space for her to sit down. As she lowered herself shakily down into the sofa she said.

"Julian, Santo's in your room. I think he's looking for the porn." Cess said casually. Pixie giggled. Julian went remotely red and dashed out of the room with a loud and necessary SHIT!

Laura turned to Cess, looking confused. "I have heard this term before, but I do not know what it means. Do you know, Cessily?" Laura said quizzically. Pixie was covering up her giggles very poorly.

"Oh, uh ... never mind ..." Cess answered sheepishly, shrinking back into the couch.

**...**

When Julian reached his room Santo was indeed there. The room had been ransacked and Santo was sitting in the middle of the mess, rifling through his stuff.

"Santo, what the fuck are you doing?" Julian made his way through the rubble that used to be his possessions. Santo looked up and instead of having the good grace to run away he just said.

"Hey! You made a list!" Santo yelled gratingly. For a second, he had no idea what Santo was talking about, but he then saw what was in Santo's hands. It was now crumpled, but it was certainly the Reasons Not to Date Laura List.

He was doomed. Totally doomed.

Physical attack seemed pointless; Santo was larger than him. Yep, definitely doomed.

While Santo was thinking (judging from the look in his face it seemed to be a somewhat strenuous task) Julian grabbed the sheet of paper out of his hand and stuffed it deep into his pocket.

Then he pushed Santo through the wall telekinetically.

**...**

On his way back to the common room, Julian was deciding the fate of the list. If anyone found it again, then he would probably have a very painful death coming his way. Maybe he could burn it...

The common room was nearly empty. Sooraya had disappeared and so had Pixie. Victor and Dess had taken their places. They were talking in tense whispers. Julian decided that he couldn't be bothered to take part in more conversation about the corpse or Miss Frost holding therapy sessions. ("Like we don't need more PTSD." Cess remarked after Dess had said she was being forced to attend.)

He stepped back out of the room just as Dess said nonchalantly. "Ever heard of Selene?"

The phone rang a few seconds later, Dess grabbed it as she was nearest and answered it. "Xavier Institute. Sorry. Isn't here right now. Can I take a message? 'Kay name is... Sofia. 'Kay bye." She put the phone back to see people gaping at her.

"What? Have I grown a third eye or something?" She tried to look up and brushed her hand across her forehead.

Silence answered her. And everyone's gaping faces.

"Seriously, guys! Am I missing something?"

Finally, Cess squeaked. "Was that just Sofia _Mantega_?"

Dess blinked a few times, as if she was trying to remember something. "Yeeeah. Why is it someone you know?" She said lightly.

Cessily's hand slapped her forehead with a cry of "ohboyohboyohboyohboyohboy!" Laura, who was sitting quietly in the back ground, leaned forward curiously.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Seems we must now talk of Sofia. And I was having a good day. Sigh. Anyway. Since I read New Warriors, I found what little respect for her dwindling. I mean I didn't like her in the first place, but in New Warriors I hated her. (Please note that I had no idea she was in New Warriors. But it made hating the experience even more pleasurable when there is her to hate on.) I'm writing New Warriors Sofia. I wanted some contrast. Oh and if I got any NW details wrong it was because I could not bear to read past the first 6 issues. Way too painful. **

**Hah. It feels good to moan.**

**And yes, there will definitely be a blood/mud bath. **

**Also, in other news: Like only a few days until X-force comes out! I like, nearly died when I read the preview. I decided to go into mourning for all the characters that I know are going to die in this issue. Also, I was re-reading Utopia. Julian was wearing a freakin' **_**sweater vest**_**. Like seriously: **_**a sweater vest? **_**WTF? O_O**

**There is something seriously wrong here. So, so wrong. I'm going to imagine that it never happened. MY favourite character cannot be wearing a seater vest.**

**Wow. I just realised how much I wrote in this chapter. I really need to stop writing such long A/Ns.**

Chapter Eight

On the morning of the next day, every seemed to be getting up ridiculously early. Cess came out of her room, weary and confused as to why she had decided to get up so early in ther morning. She did what anyone at the Xavier Institute did when they were confused, angry, or feeling any other emotion – blame Miss Frost.

She found Dess waiting outside the girl's bathroom, curled up and half asleep. Disregarding any form of greetings, she began to talk in a thick voice.

"Do you-"_ yawn _"have any idea" _yawn _"why we all decided to get up so early?" With a final yawn, she pointed her thumb towards the bathroom. "I'm just waiting for Laura. Said her bathrooms broken or something ..." Dess trailed of and picked at a black painted thumb nail.

She couldn't hear any yelling or scraping, so she assumed Laura wasn't destroying this bathroom as well. "Do you think Miss Frost plans on torturing us? Is that why she made us get up early?" Dess remarked, more to herself than to Cess.

Laura pushed open the door of the girl's bathroom. Though unlike Dess, who was still wearing her sleep wear, was fully dressed. She gave a brief greeting to Cess and the three of them walked towards the kitchen. "Fooood." Dess moaned on the way, like a zombie longing for brains.

Stumbling through the kitchen door, she set out to find some cereal that included sugar, chocolate and nothing even remotely healthy. Considering that this pretty much described the whole stock of food in the kitchen, she did not come out of her search empty handed.

The inhabitants of the kitchen did not even bat an eyelash at her almost mindless search for food.

Humming some sort of heavy metal tune, she pored cereal and milk into the bucket she called a bowl and sat down next to Loa.

Cess and Laura, standing against the counter, were looking at Dess with a little more interest as she set upon the food in front of her like a hungry wild beast, though with slightly more manners and less mess. The amount she had consumed was ridicules. Cess had often expresses her theory of Dess having a black hole in place of a digestive system.

Laura spoke up out of the blue, shocking Cess who had been viewing the spectacle of Dess and what seemed to be her main true love: food. "Who is this Sofia?" Laura said, innocently.

Cess blinked, shocked that Laura remembered. Cess secretly hoped that she had forgotten about it, as to save her explaining about the kiss kiss slap scenario after the decimation. She bit her lip and attempted to phrase it in such a way that would sound like it was no big thing.

Dess perked up at hearing Laura's question. "Yeah, who is this Sofia? You seemed to be kind of ... _spazzy_ last night. I kind of wondered whether you were having a fit or something." She put her spoon down in her cereal.

Cess, who was now chomping down on her lip under pressure, was saved from answering as Julian entered the room. He opened his mouth to speak, but Dess answered his question before it was even formed on his tongue.

"No, we have no idea why everyone got up so early. One possibility is that Miss Frost is trying alternative ways to torture us or ..." For lack of another reason (Dess seemed to think that torture was Miss Frost main priority. Puh-lease. It was being angry at Scott_ and_ torture.)

Julian closed his mouth and slid between Cess and Laura. Casually, he slipped an arm around Laura's waist. She leaned in, slightly.

The Institutes door bell rung, ruining the moment. Dess sat back in her chair, looking uncomfortable at the amount of cereal she had consumed. No one made a move to go and answer the door. "Is anyone going to get that?" She said, looking around. The people at table shook their heads, murmuring excuses such as _probably just a random bad guy who wants a fight _or _let Miss Frost get it. _

"Fine. I'll go and fend off the hoards of bad guys that are bound to be waiting on the door step." Dess sighed and pushed back her chair. Cess's head shot up and she followed Dess out of the room. She needed to make sure she was not going to severely injure another door to door sales man. ("He had it comin!")

Hoards of murderous villains would have been preferable to what really was waiting for them. Because on the door step was Julian's ex girlfriend. Sofia Mantega.

Cess gasped. She took a step back. Sofia looked shocked, as well. "Um, hello?" She said, leaning back slightly. She talked with a slight accent.

"You're ... you're Sofia!" Cess spluttered. "But ... you ... you lost your powers!" Cess pointed her finger and she would have probably looked pale, if she could have.

"Uhh, can you give us just a moment ...?" Dess asked, surprised to be the one who was not making themselves look stupid for once in her life. She grabbed Cess's shoulder and dragged her to the nearest bathroom.

"So ... who is this Sofia? Do you have a history or something?" Dess asked curiously. She leaned against the sink, causing it to wobble precariously. She failed to notice, because she was preoccupied with trying to get the truth out of Cess.

Cess, looking up from her hands and stopping her mantra of _we're doomed we're doomed doomed doomed! _"Dess! That was Julian's EX-GIRLFRIEND!" Cess yelled the last part, though only loud enough to burst Dess ear drums.

"Oh, wow. You're right. We really are doomed." Dess remarked with a smile. Crossing her arms against her chest and let a faraway smile wash onto her face.

"Dess this isn't funny! Laura is going to _kill _her!" Dess stilled looked happy, so Cess gave her a rundown of all the events that had occurred between Sofia and Julian. She shuddered remembering them. She had never been comfortable with the relationship.

"I don't like her as it is." Dess said, putting more pressure on the ill-attached sink. It seemed like it was struggling to get free from under her grasp. "But I seriously won't like her if I have to clean up her remains." Cess gave her an odd look. Dess shrugged "Miss Frost blames me for everything!" was her excuse. It was certainly true.

Cess hand once again became acquainted with her forehead. She smacked it three times and said after she was busy inflicting damage to her head she said "We're doomed!"

"No duh." Said Dess.

"We've only been gone about three minutes. All right, here's the plan. You go and tell the lovers and I'll distract her." Cess said, improvising. They set off in opposite directions, Dess soaring towards the kitchen, leaving a trail of smoke behind her. Cess stepped out of the the bathroom, with what she hoped resembled a sincere smile on her face.

"Sorry about that. So, uh, why are you here?" Cess said in the most casual and positive voice she could muster.

"Oh, my powers ... they came back. It feels good to have them back. So where is Julian, can I speak to him please?" Sofia said, beaming so brightly that if she continued to do so they would never need electricity ever again.

"Oh, uh ... I guess..." Cess trailed off, trying but ultimately failing to think of an excuse that didn't include ambush, or death.

**...**

By the time Dess reached the kitchen she was exhausted from using her powers and her head was spinning. She got down to a bumpy landing and walked shakily into the kitchen. Now nearly empty, except from Julian and Laura, who were making out passionately in the corner. It hurt Dess to break them apart; as Laura was smiling into the kiss (so far this had been an unrecorded myth.)

"LAURA! JULIAN!" She yelled, slapping her hands onto the table. They ignored her. She screamed their names several more times, but was frequently flipped off with _busy ... _and _go away_.

"Earth to Lovebirds!" She called, her voice tired, banging on the table once again. "Julian! For god's sake, your ex girlfriend is ... _here_." She said as a happy Sofia and a somewhat uncomfortable Cess entered the room.

The smile on Sofia's face subsequently dropped when she saw them making out. Now it looked like she was ready to drop a train on them. "WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING. WITH. MY. BOYFRIEND?" She roared. Dess and Cess stood back, trying to avoid her wrath. Laura quickly struggled out of Julian's grasp and let her claws slip out.

She stood there and hesitated for a second. Her expression was black. Then, all of a sudden, she turned and ran out of the room.

"Laura, wait!" Julian yelled after her, though did not make a move to follow her.

Anger forgotten, Sofia stared blankly at the swinging door. "What's her problem?" Cess sighed, and ran after her. "Cess, wait! Where are you going? Don't leave me with the-" Dess yelled after her, and let out a massive sigh.

"Ahh great, now look what you've done. Now we're gonna have to rebuild half of the building." Dess moaned in the general direction. Sofia and Julian had taken up an uncomfortable silence and were fading her out.

"I repeat what you were doing with that girl?" Sofia said, slowly. She seemed to have to sort of anger people related to time bombs. Tick Tick Tick Tick ... BOOM! "And who the hell was she anyway?" She added, a little louder. No explosion just yet, though Dess was waiting for it ready.

"That was a genetic clone of Wolverine. Her name's Laura. And she is probably thinking of seven ways to kill you right now. Oh did I mention she's Julian's-?" Dess said, positively. She stuck a finger up as she spoke, more than willing to contribute to the problem.

"Please shut up Dess." Said Julian. His eyes screamed help me. Or possible murder me. Dess couldn't decide what she would prefer. He then turned to Sofia.

"Hi to you to, Sof." Julian murmured, kicking imaginary dirt at his feet. "Wait, you lost your powers. How come your here?" He asked, looking at her. Sofia had cooled off, and was now willing to tell everyone about her 'miracle'.

"I joined the New Warriors when-" Sofia started, but did not get very fair. This was because of Dess, of course. (When is a problem not because of Dess?)

"Oh great. Just what we need." Dess interrupted, rolling her eyes with her arms crossed over her chest. Perhaps that explosion wasn't quite so far off ... Even so, Dess continued. "A heart-warming tale that will put us all to sleep. Maybe that's why we all got up so early this morning."

Sofia gave Dess a look that could have burnt through her face. The one she received a little short of an actual death stare. If Julian hadn't been in the room, she would probably be choking on the floor.

"As I was saying, I joined the New Warriors after I lost my powers. I did not want to go back to Venezuela. They gave me ... substitute powers. Then my real powers came back. And know I am here." Sofia finished, occasionally pausing to trade evil stares with Dess and less evil ones at Julian.

"And now would you like to tell me what you were doing with that ... _clone?_" Sofia, added, persistent. Julian sighed and attempted to answer, though Dess, loudmouth as ever answered for him.

"Well its obvious isn't it?" Dess snorted. Julian hoped that she would shut up. She was seriously not helping the damn situation.

On receiving two death stairs of the second highest order, Dess decided to escape the room. Possible even the building. "Uh, good luck trying to kill each other!" Then she rushed off to join the search for Laura.

Julian followed her out in a blur of green, leaving Sofia baffled and completely unsure as to what to do.

**...**

Julian flew up to his favourite spot to sulk, on top of a busted up sentinels head. He sighed deeply and saw Cess poking through the woods, in search of Laura. She called her name several time, but to no answer. Sooraya was searching inside, though both seemed to no avail.

Julian sighed, again. This was just not a good day for him.

It had been okay at first, but then Sofia had shown up. And it was just at the most inconvenient moment possible. _Fuck_. He hadn't even thought about her in weeks. His thoughts had been more centred on ... Laura. He'd hated her at first and now she was in his thoughts.

Julian knew he would eventually have to choose between them. _Really Fuck. _

He had no idea what to do.

**...**

Dess stepped over the piles of rubble along the side of the Institutes property. Laura was nowhere to be found. Cess couldn't find her, nor could Sooraya. This was getting _ridiculous, _she moaned to herself. Unless Laura had decided to bury herself alive and wallow in her misery underground for a few hours, then she had no idea where she had gone.

Wait, she might have actually done that ... Dess thought. Letting her imagination run with her, she jogged over to the makeshift cemetery that took up half of the schools back yard. She could feel the opaque black flooding into her eyes. She had no idea why it happened; she only knew that it occurred when she was around the dead.

"Laura! Laura! I don't have to dig you out, do I?"She yelled, though adding the last part in a whisper. She stepped around the graves, taking in the names and thinking whether she had met them after they had died. This was more a bad habit than anything else.

Caught inside her own head, she accidently tripped on something protruding from a grave. "AHHH!" She cried as she fell back. Looking for the offender, she caught a hand poking out of the grave of the guy they had found on the doorstep yesterday.

Throwing her powers onto one of the clear spots of earth in the graveyard, she yelled. "All right, ghostie. What'd you do that for? You've caused enough trouble as it is. What is your problem?" Taking out her anger on the unmoving phantom, she waited for an answer.

"_They want you back ... She wants you back ... Sel-"_ The ghost moaned, looking almost nothing like the corpse that had been delivered to them by first class delivery yesterday. Dess, however, was not cutting it any slack.

"Great. I know they say you shouldn't shoot the messenger, but, uh, _be gone irritating spirit!" _She mused half of it to herself and screamed the rest, let power drain out through her hands.

The ghost tumbled down into dust. "Heh. It actually worked that time."

Almost directly after, Cess came running up to her. "We found her."

"Where was she? I couldn't find her anywhere. I thought she was buried or something ..." Dess looked around and shrugged. Changing the subject, she said "So how much of the building do we have rebuild?"

Cess punched her arm, half heartedly. "Don't be insensitive. We only have to fix another bathroom. It's not that I'm worried about though ... Laura was really bad when Sooraya found her. She had cuts all over her arms and legs ... It was worse than last time." Cess finished, looking around.

Dess, having a sudden fit of sensitivity (this was nearly as rare as Laura smiling.) said "Wow, hope she's okay." Cess looked astounded for a moment. Then she nodded, hoping that this kind stint would last for a while. She was going to need it.

"Well, I'm going back to see if she's okay and you're going to see what kind of state Julian is-" Cess instructed, only to be cut off mid sentence.

"What? No way! I suck at this sensitivity thing! Almost as much as I suck at flying! You can't make me-" Dess yelped, the short lived kindness had well and truly worn off. She waved her hands like a lunatic.

"_Please, _Dess! Sooraya and I are busy! And he likes you!" Cess begged.

Dess grunted. "Fine." She answered sulkily.

"Ohmigod thanks so much!" Cess yelled as she ran back to the institute.

"Whatever! But I want money! What if-?" Dess called back to her, though they were ignored. Sulkily, she kicked off the ground, muttering to herself. Searching the skies for a while, she finally spotted Julian, hunched over on top of the head of a broken sentinel.

Bracing herself for extreme emo-ness, she dropped down shakily in front of the giant robots head. Swallowing, she said. "Hi. You looked kind of pissed earlier. Are you okay? I was wondering if it was my fault."

Julian didn't answer; he just continued to look down at the ground. It was likely that he was ignoring her; everyone else did.

"Seriously, Julian what's wrong?" Dess said, sounding slightly concerned. There was still no answer.

"Helooo? Earth to Julian! You died have you? _Answer me_!" Dess yelled franticly, vividly imagining Cess' face when she found out. It was not a pretty sight – nor was the vision of horrible deaths in store for Dess.

"Okay, okay. I can hear you. You're really, really hard to ignore aren't you?" He said, bitterly. Dess looked terribly relived, pleased at being able to vanish visions of horrible deaths from her head.

"Yep. So what's up? I'm really sorry for messing up your life out there. With Sofia, I mean." She added, plonking herself down on the rickety sentinels shoulder. The metal groaned under her weight.

"Basically, I'm doomed. How was I supposed to know Sofia would be back? I'm in really, really deep shit." He moaned. Dess gave him a tentative pat on the shoulder.

"Well, if it helps, I'm screwed too. I have therapy with Miss Frost tomorrow. _Therapy. _With _Miss Frost_. Seriously." Dess shuddered as she spoke. "And you _are _in really deep shit. So deep you could drown in it." Upon making this statement, Dess got another death stare (she seemed to be collecting them that day.) and decided to change the subject. "But, I mean, are you okay?"

"Not really. I mean, I thought I loved Sofia. Then M-day happened. And Laura came along. And then Brian died. Damn, my life sucks." He paused for a second, and then he continued with his tale of misery and astonishingly, Dess didn't interrupt once.

After he had finished, Dess sat back and put her hand on her chest. "That ... That was really ... deep, Julian. I have a question, though. Do you need to come to therapy with me tomorrow? You sound like you need it." She said, taken aback.

"I just have no idea what to do." Julian said.

"Well. Cess and Sooraya are here for you. And so am I. Just not all the time. I should not be involved in this sensitivity thing. I guess Laura still likes you. You know, if Sofia hasn't killed her yet ... Ohmigod, what if Sofia is a cannibal?" Dess's hands flew up to her mouth.

"Dess, calm down. Sofia is not a cannibal." Julian smiled.

"How do you know that?" Dess pointed, out suddenly freaking out.

"She didn't eat me yet. I just think she wants to kill me. And that sucks." Julian said, disjointedly.

"Yeah, that would look really bad on a gravestone." Dess agreed, becoming distracted once again. "But what I meant to say is that it doesn't matter if she hates you because uh well, you've got ... Laura. Okay, I am never giving another pep talk again."

"Ha. Thanks Dess."

"For what? I can't give a motivational speech to save my life."

**...**

Emerging back into the kitchen a few minutes later, Sofia was sitting there with Nori, entranced in a conversation at the table. Sofia's bag had disappeared. When she saw Julian she jumped, apparently oblivious to Dess, who then went to get some pancakes out of the refrigerator.

"Hi, Julian. I'm really sorry I yelled at you earlier. Can we just be like friends or something?" Sofia said, innocently. Dess looked up from her pancakes, which she was know drowning in maple syrup.

"Oh come on! I just spent two hours convincing him that you hated him!" Dess said, letting her attention to wonder away from her pancakes and letting it spill over the edges of her plate.

"Dess!" Nori yelled, extracting her hands from the river of maple syrup.

"Sorry. Maybe I should go..." Dess said, taking her swamp that she called food and proceeded down the hall to Cess room. She hit the door very loudly three times.

"Cess! Sofia is pursuing me with a ... gardening instrument. Let me in!" She improvised. Cess came to the door, speaking while she ushered Dess in.

"A 'gardening instrument'? What the – oh you're making it up." Cess closed the door behind Dess. Laura and Sooraya were also in the room. Laura did not look injured, just very upset.

"Hi, Sooraya. Hi Laura." Dess said, sitting down on the floor against Cess bed, making sure not to make the pancakes fall over. Sooraya greeted her. Laura just nodded and enquired about the pancakes.

"Is that maple syrup on those pancakes? Can I have one?" Laura's eyes widened at the sight of them, like they were some kind of god. Which, considering how they tasted, probably were.

"Have 'em." Dess pushed the plate towards Laura, who then proceeded to devour them with a smile. Cess smiled and Sooraya looked relieved. Dess was just astonished.

"Huh. What maple syrup can do in minutes would have taken us hours. Making Laura smile." Cess observed.

"Okay, then. I talked to Julian. He's currently getting mobbed by Sofia. From all the yelling earlier today, I assume that they were in a relationship. That, like, sucks. Did they break up?" Dess mouth motored on, asking questions.

"It's kind of hard to explain. They sort of did break up, but they sort of didn't. It was the day that Kevin ran away."

"Kevin Ford?" Dess said, her usual pale complexion turning slightly whiter.

"Uh, yeah. Why?" Cess said, slightly suspicious.

"Oh, it ... just sounded familiar. But any way, I think we need a plan." Dess bite her lip and rapidly changed the subject.

"SO, my idea is that we should kill Sofia. Who's in favour?" She raised her hand, and so did Laura. Cess shoved her hand down.

Dess crossed her arms and muttered. "_She had it comin'_."

"Maybe there's a solution that doesn't involve, you know, death or PRISON." Cess said ever the lawful one.

An exchange something like this was continued between for some time, long and repetitive enough for Sooraya to remark.

"This seems to be going on for a long time, perhaps we should break them up..." Laura seemed to be pretty entertained at the methods of death that were spewing out of Dess mouth, though.

Finally, Laura interrupted their bickering and said, to everyone's great surprise. "Maybe we should just let her be." This shut them up for sure. Everyone stared. This was definitely not Laura.

"I'm sorry, but who are you and what have you done with Laura Kinney?" Dess gaped at her, asking politely. Her eyes flitted around suspiciously. Laura was looking oddly innocent. She shrugged in answer.

"Okay ... wait ... Hey, I know! You've been reading books about how to be a pacifist! Either that or your being possessed by some kind of psychic entity." Dess motored on, thinking of all the possible solutions to the problem

"Uh, this is my fault actually..." Cess bit her lip. "I gave her the peace book ..." Dess gave her a look as if to say _why the hell did you do that? _"Well ... she wouldn't go to therapy and ... uh."

Sooraya was giggling in the background. Dess, possible having picked up this habit from Cess, hit her forehead with a palm.

"How on earth are we going to kill Sofia now when the only person who can get away with killing around this place is a pacifist?" Dess said, to the beat of her hand and her head.

This was when they decided that they were definitely taking Dess to therapy tomorrow.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Taa-daa. A chapter with minimal editing. I am having so much fun with this. I also have no idea where the hell this chapter came from. And I am kind of wishing that it will never see the light of day.**

**Laura likes pancakes, didn't ya know?**

**Oh god, I just had a romance overload. I think after this chapter I shall go back to harming characters and making jokes. Just, all shall be pro-helix.**

**OH my god guys, I can't believe you could even think that Sofia could even half win this. Jeez, I'm not that cruel. That'd be like some kind of self harm. I just figured out the goal of this chapter: to cause Sofia enough pain as possible. Mwa ha ha. Next chapter it's time to hurt Wolfsbane! Nah, just kidding. I'll keep my sadistic needs to throwing any New Mutants with Rahne in it against the wall. But not my precious X-forces. **

**Now here's the irrelevant stuff:**

**I just found out there was a Runaways/New X-men crossover issue ... tell me people, is this heaven? **

**I nearly died this morning. Justin Beiber (otherwise known as the antichrist) is getting a comic. My eyes were bleeding. But then I found scans from Second Coming #2. (My caopy is being lame and not getting here.) **** OH MY GOD. Hope is the phoenix, Julian has robot stumps and there are five more mutants. DUNDUNDAAAR!**

**I'm going on holday without access to internet connection of r awhile, but I'll try and write some chapters while I'm there.**

Chapter 9

Cess and Dess strolled towards the kitchen, Dess nattering on and Cess rejecting every little comment she made about how to deal with Sofia.

"For the last time, we cannot kill her in any way. And no, we can't blame the purifiers for it either." Cess said, immediately cutting Dess off. She looked rather disappointed, as if she had had a good idea.

"Well, it's not like you have a better plan." Dess returned, sulkily. "Anyway, I hid all of the pacifist books and made Laura watch a scary movie last night. She laughed when this guy exploded, and that's a good sign. _She _can do any killing that needs to be done."

"Seriously, Dess. Why can't you just drop it already? We can't kill her. You've been going on about it for TWO WHOLE DAYS." Cess said, pushing the kitchen door open. Dess sighed. People just didn't understand her master plan.

Entering the kitchen to see Laura sitting at a table, silently. Opposite her were an extremely uncomfortable looking Julian and Sofia, who was nattering on about irrelevant things.

"Oh, look what the cat dragged in." Sofia, said stopping mid sentence to give Dess her greeting. Dess, for lack of a better comeback, stuck her tongue out in Sofia's direction. Well done Dess, very original.

Laura jumped up from the table a little too eagerly. She took a position beside Cess, who was now pouring pancake mixture that she had got from god-knows-where into a frying pan. The temptation of pancakes and to get away from Sofia who was asking questions Laura preferred to leave unanswered had been to much.

After about two minutes of frying, Dess was practically eating the pancakes out of the pan.

"Are they done yet?" She asked, rocking up and down on her heels.

"No." Cess answered.

"Are they done yet?" Dess asked, relentlessly.

"No." Cess said, again.

"Are they done yet?" Dess asked, with exactly the same tone that she had when she asked the first two times.

"For the last time, NO!" Cess yelled, exasperated. Laura sniggered.

"Savage." Sofia muttered under her breath. However, Dess heard her and turned on her and pointed.

"Cannibal!" She yelled. Sofia merely looked confused, and a little offended. Though, apparently, not offended enough to throw another insult in Dess direction.

"Whore!"

"I bet that's Pixie on your plate right now! Jeez, I know Megan's annoying, but you didn't have to eat her!" Dess said, pointing towards a rasher of bacon on Sofia's plate.

"Its bacon!" Sofia retaliated, matter of fact. Everyone in the room was trying to conceal their laughter in one way or another. And failing at it.

"Sure it is." Dess said, sarcasm oozing from her voice. She was having a good time fighting for no reason. Cess was right – perhaps she did need therapy.

No. If she really thought she needed therapy then she knew she really was losing her mind.

Sofia went back to her place at the table, without another comment and subtly slid her chair closer to Julian's, who was laughing quietly at the scenario. He stopped abruptly when he noticed Sofia's proximity, and tried not so subtly to edge away. Unfortunately, he could only shift so far. Sofia shifted next to him.

And suddenly, Sofia had attacked Julian with a kiss. "Mrrmmf! Mrrmmf!" He said, muffled by Sofia's mouth.

Des, now leaning on the counter with a rare, intelligent expression on her face, said shallowly. "Y'know, I'm pretty sure Mrmmf! Mrrmmf! Translates to Rape! Rape! In the dictionary." Cess slapped her shoulder, mainly to shut her up.

Laura, claws having slipped out of her knuckles, was staring at Sofia with a practically blood thirsty look on her face. Then, with all the grace of a speeding rhino, ran out of the room. For the second time this week. No one even bothered to guess what she was going to destroy this time, just hoped that it would not been herself, too large to repair or another human being.

"And thus ends Laura's stint as a pacifist." Dess said, giving her opinion. She seemed pretty pleased about this, actually.

When Julian finally managed to pull Sofia on him, he also pushed his chair down on Dess foot. "Yowch!" she said comically, grasping her foot. Sofia, using an expression somewhere in between smug and the look that abused puppies give you, said. "What did I do wrong?"

Dismissing the question, Julian replied. "What the hell, Sofia? You freakin' dumped me." Without waiting for an answer, he ran after Laura.

"Isn't that like the second surprise attack Julian got this week? There was that one from Nori—" Dess said, having stuck her nose into everyone's affairs in the two week or so that she had been at the institute. Cess, not wanting to cause more trouble for Julian, stomped down hard on Dess other shoe, causing her to fall down hard and land on her butt.

"Wait, Nori made out with him?" Sofia, asked, incredulously. Cess was alarmed, though she managed to hide it well. Dess looked up from her fallen position, her purplish hair caught in her eyes. She blew it out of her sight while she talked, though it settled back there again in a straight line. Cess prayed she wouldn't mouth off anymore.

"Oh did I say that out loud? It was just ... a dream I had. Yeah, a dream! And in the end we all died! In horrible ways! Like, I got my head cut off and Cess got electrocuted when Nori went crazy ... And you exploded!" Dess was obviously improvising, though Sofia seemed to believe her, somewhat sceptically though.

But in the long term, Cess thought, unless Sofia would either 'accidently' die (it would be all of Dess fault, of course. Reason number 341 for taking her to that therapy class) or they could think of a more humane option, they we're doomed.

Cessily was mightily relieved. Though a crap cover story, and somewhat worrying, (Dess had possible been thinking of ways to kill them. Cess decided that she would make her go to therapy, whether she liked it or not.) Sofia was buying it.

Changing the subject and pulling Cess out of her reverie, Sofia was staring into open space and said. "What's her problem? The clone, I mean"

Dess, having almost no self control, possible not even a meaning of the words, replied. "It's you, Sofia! You're the reason why we have to rebuild this building about three times a week! We only had to do it like once a week before! It's getting ridiculous! And this is why I want to kill you!" Dess only realised what she had let out of her mouth after she had finished.

"Oh crap ..." Dess said, right after she had finished. She was being especially slow today not that that was much of a difference.

Sofia looked murderous. She lunged for Dess, who was shielding her face with her arms, braced for attack. "AHHHH! I didn't mean that! I didn't mean it! It was all Miss Frost's fault!" Dess had resorted to the communal backup plan of the Xavier Institute – blame Miss Frost. She screamed again and reluctantly let a few ghosts flow out of her body. They shielded her, throwing Sofia back.

"Cool. I wonder if one of them will make me a sandwich?" Dess said, viewing the shield. Losing her concentration, the phantoms dissipated and sprinkled the floor with an ash like substance.

Unfortunately for her, Sofia had decided to make her advance by then. She threw what felt like hurricane force wind at Dess, who fell back into the pile of gloop that Cess had taken in an attempt to sneak out of the room.

"Great. Not only do I have therapy with a psycho that they call a teacher, but now I have a bad hair day. And I'm gonna have to wash Cess of my clothes. Hey Cess, do you get motion sick?" Dess asked, feeling the puddle slip form under her, projecting herself up wards, formed a hand and flicking Dess hard on the head.

"That's totally going to bruise, y'know?" Dess yelled. Her hand plastered to her injured temple, she sulked. However, sulking didn't last for long. Mainly because of her microscopic attention span.

Cess' hand picked up her clothes and proceeded to meld her body into its normal shape. Sofia, meanwhile, flounced out of the room, looking victorious.

**...**

Julian could not decide whether to go after Laura, or to resume his sulking where he had left off a couple of days ago. Though the latter was less likely to involve blood or tears, Sofia had seriously pissed her off. Again.

God, what was her problem? She was more prone to causing disaster than Dess was. Dess had it bad, but for Sofia it seemed to be some sort of secondary mutation. And she had dumped him. Sure it had been pretty unclear at the time, and he had been in denial for some time after that, but it had been made clear when she had severed any connections with him or anyone else, as a matter of fact.

Julian decided to go for the look for Laura option, even if it meant that he was likely going to lose some body parts. Josh would just heal them anyway. And judging from the sounds echoing from the kitchen, Cessily and Dess were not going to be able to help him in his time of ... emo.

But there was no way he was going into the girl's bathroom. So far he had no idea what kind of horrors that waited inside.

Fortunately for him, he found Laura early on in his search in a very simple hiding place. She was in one of the spare rooms, though it could no longer be recognisable as a room, for it had been severely smashed up. One of the beds had been wrecked, and the walls had been slashed repeatedly. Laura herself, though was sitting serenely on the other bed.

Scratches were marred into her arms. She was running one of her claws up and down her arm. Julian accidently let a gasp slip out, blowing his cover. Laura had probably already smelt him, but his appearance had shocked her nonetheless.

"What are you doing here, Julian?" She said bitterly, not bothering to meet his eyes. Her claws retracted into her hands. Julian moved into the room, slowly. Laura did nothing, waiting for him to answer.

"I was, uh, looking for you." He explained. Laura still did nothing. She just continued looking down at her feet.

"Listen, Laura ..." he tried again, awkwardly. She looked up – finally – though she did not look happy. Granted she almost never looked happy, but this seemed to be an all time low.

_Why the fuck do we have to go through this? AGAIN?_ Julian thought, frustrated before he spoke.

"Why were you ... uh, cutting yourself?" Julian said, blurting out the first thing that came to his mind. _Smooth. Way to go. _His said to conscience to him.It sounded uncannily like Dess, whenever she was trying to lecture people and failing. That was extremely creepy.

"I think that that is none of your business." Laura responded dryly. _Back to square one. _The voice in his head responded. He immediately told it to shut up. Just, not using those exacts words. (Of course it did not do that. Not only did it sound like Dess, but it had all the characteristics of her. Seriously creeped out.)

"Look, Laura. I'm sorry okay! I didn't kiss Sofia, okay. She kissed me!" He stressed, pointing to the door for no reason at all. But Laura seemed to be listening. And his new independent conscience was being quiet.

"I know that, Julian. Laura said, eerily calm. She said this with a flick of her hand, splattering blood into the bed. She was referring to the amount of random make outs he had received this week. "But this was the second time this week that _this_ has happened. It is getting quite ridiculous." She continued.

Julian sat down on the bed next to her. He put his arm around her. Laura didn't run for the door. The split personality returned, half convincing him that he was going insane. _And this round belongs to Julian. _There was only one answer to all of this – Dess ha managed to hack into his head, to give him a mental pep talk.

Okay, maybe he was going insane.

Caught in his reverie, he had not noticed that Laura had popped a claw out and was discreetly cutting her arm. A small X had been scratched onto her bare forearm. The metallic odour of her blood had brought Julian back to life.

Julian caught her arm, and said gently, "Why'd you do that?" He could feel the cuts healing under his palm. Laura remained awkwardly silent for a considerable amount of time. When she did answer, it was slow and stunted.

"I ... do not know. I do it when I ... don't understand things. Emotions." Laura answered, somewhat shakily. She resumed her staring contest with her shoes. (She was winning. Her feet were lousy competition.)

Okay ... Julian thought, even more confused than before. Laura had layers, apparently. Or maybe she was just as confused as he was at that moment, which was quite an amazing feat to reach.

"I'm ... sorry, Laura." He said, at a loss for anything else to say. Laura leant on him, sniffling. Oh god, she was crying. Experiencing a minor freak out, he hugged her. Oh for fucks sake not again was what he was thinking, whereas he actually said,

"Shhhhh, uhh, don't cry, beautiful. Please. Its gonna be okay. I think." Julian said, quietly. Laura had stopped sniffling, but his shoulder was wet.

Julian heard some faint giggling, he looked around to see the source, but it appeared to come from nowhere. He then realized that it was coming from inside his head. His head shot up and his spine alighted itself painfully straight.

Laura spoke to him, his head jerked towards him. "Thank you, Julian." She whispered.

He said nothing, just stroked her hair a little. However the silence was broken moments later when several people came crashing down the hall, screaming in a particularly girly way. Who were attacking now? Had the purifiers not killed enough of the students last time they visited?

Great. Purifiers were not only delusional mass murderers, but they were also moment killers.

When Julian stuck his head outside the door, it was not purifiers, or a herd of elephants. It was Santo and Victor, the latter being hung upside down by his toes out of a window. Victor was the one screaming like a little girl.

Julian suppressed a snigger and went back into the room.

**...**

Cess and Dess had left the kitchen in the state that it had been in after the many fights (which is to say broken furniture and scattered remains of breakfast.) of the morning with a plan of blaming it all on Sofia. (Well, that was Dess plan. She was also going to break a whole lot more stuff and blame her for it as well. Cess didn't know this.)

Cess intention was to deliver Dess to therapy, and to make sure that she wouldn't find anyway of ditching. Because she truly needed therapy.

"Why can't you just forget about it? Please Cess. Going in that room is like digging my own grave. _And I don't wanna die_." She whined. Cess had so far ignored all of her complaints, replying to every single one of them (numbering around 1430, 0000) "Uh huh. It's for your own good." _And the good of the earth's population._

"Sue, I'll drop it. Whenever you drop the idea about killing Sofia." Cess said. Dess looked defeated and sad in many ways. She was a bit like a puppy when she was sad. But puppies were less psychopathic.

"Fine. I'll go. But Cess can you do something for me?" Dess said, projecting puppy dogs eyes at Cess hard enough to make her want to pet her.

Cess, feeling triumphant, nodded and beamed. "Sure."

Taking a deep breath, Dess said, "Tell Sofia I give her the middle finger from the afterlife."

Cess hand once again met her forehead, she then pushed Dess towards the door of Miss Frost office with one hand and opened it with the other.

"Don't make me go in there! You're sending me to my doom! Cess! Fine, then! But you better get me a nice gravestone!" Dess yelled, as she was pushed into the office.

**...**

Later that day, Dess emerged from the office looking faintly sick. She stumbled into the kitchen numbly. Without bothering to greet anyone, she went to the fridge almost numbly and started placing things on the counter without looking at them.

Cess who had been previously engrossed in a conversation with Julian and Laura, noticed Dess making precarious piles of ice cream on the counter top.

"How'd the therapy go? Do you feel, like, _enlightened_ and stuff?" Cess asked, cheerily. Dess did not answer until she had settled upon a flavour of ice cream and sat down next to Cess.

"That was not therapy. That was _torture. _They should rename this place to the Xavier Institute of torture and broken bathrooms." She said, shovelling ice cream into her mouth with a spoon the size of a shovel into her mouth between sentences.

"Broken bathrooms?" Cess said in disbelief, raising an eyebrow.

"What? We have, like, one working bathroom, thanks to somebody." Dess said, eyeing Laura with an irritated expression. Laura appeared to be unaffected, disappointing Dess quite a lot.

"So what'd she make you scared of this time? Windows? Or potatoes?" Cess smirked.

"Hahaha, yes." Dess answered embarrassed. Everyone in the room tried to stifle there laughter in one way or another and, like always, failing epically. Even Laura was laughing.

"You're afraid of potatoes?" Cess spluttered incredulously through giggles.

"No. Windows. And shut up! This is my time of emo and you're all ruining it! You should be like, giving me chocolate or something!" Dess yelled sulkily.

"Okay. Okay. So are you afraid of anything else?" Cess put a stop to the laughing. For a while, anyway.

"Well ... she did make me afraid of sweater vests, for no reason ... _at all._" Julian's eyes wondered down to his chest, which – surprise, surprise – was covered by a red sweater vest. Dess let out a string of mumbled obscenities and then screamed.

"AHHHH! Why the HELL are you wearing that? Why the hell do you even have that?" Dess covered her eyes and then she subsequently jumped over her chair and his behind it.

"Santo dared me ..." Julian trailed off, sounding remotely amused. Miss Frost did some very strange stuff with telepathy. Meanwhile, Dess was muttering things about bad karma and somewhat irrelevantly, zombies.

Gathering her wits, Dess stood up, and avoiding looking at windows and Julian said, "Whatever. Wait, Santo dared you to wear a sweater vest? Okay. Odd. I'm gonna go and change now." Dess mused, and not waiting for an answer to any of her questions, she dashed out of the room.

**...**

Minding her own business was not Dess strong point. So, naturally, when she heard yelling echoing from Sofia's room, she obviously had to eavesdrop. Sure she sucked at it, and almost always got caught, but that was not the point.

Shuffling towards the door, she edged it open slightly. A direct broadcast of what Sofia was yelling down the phone.

"... Yes! She's here. And giving me hell, though." Sofia said, volume varying from one word to another, though she always sounded pissed off. Dess hoped it was her that she was talking about, it was quite a compliments to see that all of her hard work was not going to waste.

"... For god sake, Bard! She hates me, okay? She won't let me lure her into a trap for you. You're whole gone crazy with love thing plan will not work."

Dess ears pricked up on the mention of the word 'bard' and she was sent on high alert. Resisting the urge to gasp, she continued to listen. She knew who Sofia was talking about, and it meant bad news.

"... Fine. I'll try harder. But only if you give me what I want. Great. Bye, Eli." Fabulous. That confirms it, Dess thought somewhere in-between bitter and terrified. She knew that it had been too good to last. Then she realised that she should get the hell out of there. And then convince people that she actually had a good reason for hiring someone to, ahem; take care of Sofia this time.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: I write this to you in the middle of nowhere. It is quite obvious that I have way too much spare time. And most of this time is spent doing nothing useful. Like, writing this chapter for example. **

**I got the Pixie Strikes Back trade this week. It was really cute. And funny. And amazing. Basically I loved it. Heh, sue me, I'm a girl. **

**You know, considering what I've done with Sofia it leaves a whole lot more possibilities for killing her off ... But whatever happens, she will not win! (Nor shall Hope. As in Summers. Not in this fanfic. That is just a random thought that has been bothering me for quite a while.)**

**This chapter is very long. I am sorry about that. Don't get used to it.**

**I think I'm going to write a one shot. It may/may not be posted.**

Chapter 10

"Your task is simple. Take down Colossus. Actually try, this time." Miss Frost broadcasted down to the students in the danger room the following day, ignoring their groans. She did this every time and the scenario was always the same – Colossus would win.

Preparing to be thrown against the wall, everyone apart from Sofia, spread around the room. She just stood still, metal tentacles protruding out of the side of her suit. Naturally, Colossus went after her first.

"We have the best welcoming committee, don't we?" Dess remarked, standing well back, arms crossed against her chest, hoping not to be noticed while she surveyed the scene. Meanwhile, Sofia was dodging blows and jumping over people that Mr. Rasputin had defeated in his wake.

"Shouldn't we do something?" Cess asked, though she did not sound very enthusiastic.

"No." Both Laura and Dess said in unison. They both seemed convinced that this was the right thing to do.

Nori, who was one of the remaining students standing, called out to Sofia, shouting instructions. They were all steadily ignored. Exasperated, Nori yelled. "_Wind dancer!" _

Sofia answered to this, panting while she ran. "I go ... by Renascence ... now."

"Wow. And I thought my codename was lame." Dess said. This earned her renewed evil eyes from Sofia.

Sweat dripped down Sofia's forehead. While she rested, one of the tentacles whipped out and grappled onto the approaching Colossus. It sent a burst of electricity down Colossus arm and round his whole body. It only lasted seconds, and finished with a loud _bzzt_. He went clanking to the ground.

And onto Dess foot.

"Owwww! Why does it always have to be that foot? It's not like it's ever done anything bad!" She said, cradling her foot. This statement was most probably a lie. She then turned to Sofia, "I hate you!" Apparently the new thing to do when something bad happened to you was to blame Sofia, and not Miss Frost. It had already happened twice that day.

"Very mature, Dess." Sofia replied, dryly. Her arms were crossed over her chest. One of the metal ropes shot out of her side and grabbed Dess leg, and then proceeded to dangle Dess upside down by her ankles. Meanwhile, Cess and Laura were crouching over Colossus's body.

"Ohmigod! D'you think he's okay?" Cess panicked, her eyes were wide and her voice was frantic.

"He is not dead. He is unconscious." Laura replied, simply. Cess let out all of the breath that she had been holding in.

"Oh, and _I'm _the immature one, now?" Dess said, crossing her arms over her chest with some hassle. "Blood ... rushing to ... head ... shit ... someone help ... PLEASE!"

Her yells pulled Laura and Cess from Mr. Rasputin. Laura ran towards the smirking Sofia, who was talking down at Dess. The latter looked like she either going to be sick or try to murder Sofia. Knowing her, attempted murder was probably the most likely.

With a single sweeping motion, Laura cut the tentacle holding Dess captive in half, sending her tumbling to her ground, head first. Sofia stopped mid sentence and shrieked, "HEY!" The half of it gripping Dess's leg loosened itself and fell to the ground with a _thunk._

"Owwww. Thanks, Laura." She muttered through clenched teeth while pulling herself off the floor and hopped towards where Cess and Alani was standing. Cess was entranced in the loud and violent cat fight that was happening between Laura and Sofia.

"They're killing each other! Why isn't Miss Frost doing anything?" Cess said to no one in particular. She sounded eve more worried than normal. This inspired the trio to look up. Miss Frost was there all right, but she was looking rather ... happy.

"Ohmigod!" Was all that Cess could manage.

"Miss Frost really is a worse teacher than I thought." Dess announced.

"Do you think we should stop them?" Alani added to the conversation. She stood there rubbing her arm, looking indifferent.

"No! Laura is doing my dirty work for me!" Dess said, more panicked than Cess. They both turned to look at her. She pressed herself into the wall, and quietened her voice. "I mean, no, we should let them take out their anger now to save any injuries later."

Alani shrugged and went back to watching the spectacle with a _fair enough_, but Cess gave Dess the oh god, you're my friend and everything but you really need to some help look that she gave exclusively to Dess.

"YOU BITCH!" Sofia bellows shocked them back to life. Pixie seemed to be the one who had heard it the loudest and taken the worst of it. She was jittering around, terrified. She decided to hide behind something. Julian was edging towards Cess, looking pained.

"Anyone who actually wants to come to this school has some kinda death wish." Dess remarked. At that moment, this statement seemed very true.

"I am not a dog." Laura said, through punches. She did not sound even a little bit winded. She did look incredibly restrained, though.

Sofia looked somewhat a loss for what to say next, though manages to spit something out in the end. "You ... you _Justin Bieber!_" A collected gasp passed through about half the people in the room, whereas the other half where on the floor laughing.

Dess apparently was among the latter. "Harsh." She conferred, after she had picked herself up and put a stop to her giggles. Cess however, has something else to say on the matter. "But I like Justin Bieber. How could you use it as an insult?" Momentarily distracted from the violent catfight, Dess shot her one of the looks that Cess normally gave her when she was plotting something.

"Shut up, Cess. He's like the worst singer EVER." Dess argued. Alani was nodding sadly in agreement. Dess smirked.

By the time Julian finally managed to get to them, he was looking not only pained, but petrified as well. Cess, being alone in her crusade, immediately said,

"Isn't Justin Bieber a great singer? Tell them!" Cess motored, pointing to Dess and Alani. Taken aback, he opened his mouth to say something obscene, closed it again, and then settled on something.

"Cessily. Worst. Singer. EVER." Cess was disappointed and angry and flicked him for that, whereas Dess looked positively triumphant. Alani had wondered off to Josh, who was standing not far off.

Letting their gazes wonder back to the brawl, they heard a large amount of various random insults, saw Laura break her nose twice, both healing knobbly. Sofia was obviously taking advantage of Laura's healing factor. She far she had punched Laura in the stomach, forehead, nose, mouth, and various other body parts.

Laura was putting up a good fight too. Sofia had blood running into her mouth, and one of her wrists seemed broken. The remains of several more tentacles were littered around the floor, leaving only three on Sofia's 'evil octopus' (As nicknamed my Cess.) suit. By this time she had got her claws out, though she was refraining from slashing anywhere fatal. This was all extremely strange.

"Clone!" Sofia panted. Way to go, Sofia. That was so incredibly imaginative, not to mention original and a fantastic idea! The back and forth between them before the point had been slightly odd and not to mention, unconventional and know it was becoming clichéd.

A communal _Oooh _passed through the crowd. Sofia had managed to push Laura on to the ground. Laura's feet were trapped between Sofia's ankles, tying her to the ground. Unless she had some excellent trick up her sleeve (or rather down her boots) she was screwed.

"You know, with a few light savers or whatever, this could totally be Star Wars." Dess mused. Cess and Julian's eyes flipped from the fight towards Dess, who shrunk back into the wall.

"What? Don't act like you weren't thinking that too!" She yelled, gathering an audience. No one had been thinking that, actually. "Oh come one, don't tell me that I'm the only one!" No one raised a hand or said a thing. "_Come on!"_She stilled received nothing but blank stares.

Directing their eyes back to Sofia and Laura, continuing their apparently Stars Wars styled fight. Sofia was lecturing Laura about various things, an expression plastered onto her face that could kill puppies. Laura, tiring of Sofia mad raving said, "Bigot." And pushed her feet out, causing Sofia to fall into a position resembling the splits. The only difference was that this looked more painful.

"Boyfriend stealer!" Sofia muttered, trying several times to get off the floor, but failing every time.

"So that's what this is about." Cess acknowledged. Julian had turned scarlet, mortified. He seemed to be attempting to turn his self invisible, in order to escape from all of the glares and laughing stares he was receiving.

Unfortunately for him, it didn't appear to be working. "Shit." He whispered and dropping his voice even further, he said. "Killmekillmekillmekillme_please._"

"Wow! This is the like the most violent chick flick I have ever seen!" This quite obviously, came from Dess. Cess thumped the bottom of Dess's head.

"Dess! Be sensitive for once, would you? This is Julian's time of _need_." Cess whispered most of the sentence, but yelled the name.

For better or worse, Dess turned her attentions to Julian. Taking a deep breath she said. "Are you okay? Because you look like you're going to explode." Cess thwacked her again, and then set forth the break her record of hand head hand head."Dess!"

"Jeez," Dess said, rubbing the back of her skull. "My name doesn't mean shut up, y'know."

Suddenly, the doors of the danger room banged open via Mr. Summers. His mouth was set in an angry grimace. Everyone shrunk back silently, trying to avoid the wrath that was bound to come. Eyes flitting above them, even Miss Frost seemed scared.

"What happened?" he asked, calmly. The breath that had everyone had been holding in was let out, in a single, loud, collected sigh.

"That was anticlimactic." Cess whispered, though not everyone said, everybody agreed with her.

Laura and Sofia both stood up, panic obvious on their faces. Pointing their index fingers at each other, they cried in unison, "SHE STARTED IT!"

Confusion evident on his face, Mr. Summers, spoke. "... Uh, what's that supposed to mean?"

Josh, looking up from Sofia's wounds, explained. "They got into a fight. I think it was about J-"

"Foley, shut up!" Julian interrupted. His efforts, though, seemed to be for nothing, because Santo filled in the spaces.

"It's all Keller's fault!" Santo yelled his voice grating with laughter.

"You're screwed." Was a thought that everyone shared. And it was most definitely true. No one could have been payed to be Julian Keller that moment.

"Okay ..." Scott paused for a second, devising some sort of plan. "You three-" he pointed to Laura and Sofia – who had been quietly resuming their boxing match - and Julian. "My office, now. The rest of you ... get back to your classes. Oh, and someone get Colossus a medic." Everyone except the selected three flooded out of the room, murmuring.

Following behind Laura and Sofia, now glaring at each other with so much anger it was surprising that none of their faces burnt off, Julian followed them with only one thought in his mind. This could only end in disaster.

**...**

Twenty minutes later, Julian at in-between the scowling Laura and Sofia. He figured that it was time that he composed a will, because he may either die of boredom or Sofia would become a psycho for a couple of minutes and use them to kill him. It hardly a good use of her time.

When his turn came to explain what happened he took a leaf out of Laura's book, keeping it short. Though opposed to _she started it_, he said. "Sofia and Dess started fighting. Laura helped Dess. Sofia got pissed. They started kicking the shit out of each other. You came in. The end."

"Language." Cyclops said as he staring pacing behind his desk, trying to come up with some sort of solution. Inspiration struck as he reached his chair for the sixty third time. "Mr. Logan will help you ... work out your differences."

At the words Mr. Logan, Julian's head shot up. _Mr Logan? Logan? Wolverine? SHIT! _

"What?" Sofia yelped, momentarily caught out of her moping.

Laura however remained silent, though a smile creeped onto her face. Almost as shocking as therapy with Wolverine.

Mr. Summers walked out o the door, presumably to go and find Wolverine. Sofia spoke, voicing Julian's own thoughts, sulkily. "Well, this sucks." She threw herself back into her chair, scowling to herself.

If Cess were here, then she would be beating herself up, whispering _we're doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed! _And she would have been right.

A few minutes later, Wolverine came sauntering into the room, looking awquard. Julian resisted the urge to put his hands up and say _I didn't do anything! _

He may have well have shouted it, because Wolverine took one look at the two sulking girls and said, "Dammit. Keller, what the hell did you do?"

"Nothing! I didn't do anything." Julian said, but Wolverine did not look convinced. He turned to Laura, who up to this point had been looking placidly out of the window.

"Laura? What happened?" He said softly.

Eyes glued on the happenings outside the window she said, "I do not wish to talk about it."

Logan, looking around aimlessly, said, "So, uh, what happened? Anyone?"

"Sofia and Dess started fighting. Laura helped Dess. Sofia got pissed. They started kicking the shit out of each other. Mr. Summers came in. The end." Julian repeated, bored.

Scratching his head and his confusion evident on his face, Wolverine settled on a solution. "So, um, what's your problem?" he said, looking at Sofia.

Taken aback momentarily, she opened her mouth briefly, presumably to utter something rude, and then changed her mind. "Laura's a bitch." She said finally.

Logan turned to Laura, who was still staring out of the window. "Sofia is a 'bitch'." She replied.

Now it was Julian's turn. Because he had nothing better to contribute he said, "You're both bitches." Upon making this statement he received two stares that could cut through diamond. "Uh, sexy bitches! Sexy bitches!" He said, trying to cover up for his mistake.

The girls seemed happy with the remedy of his mistake, but then Julian remembered that Wolverine was also in the room. He did not like he was going to explode with anger. Yet, anyway. But that could just be because he was so utterly confused.

Explosion or no, this was going to be a looooooong day.

**...**

The three of them emerged from Mr. Summer's office a couple of hours later. There had been no explosion (thank god – Cyclops would probably not be happy about cleaning Wolverine off his stuff - unless his healing factor didn't, uh, re-grow him.), but what had happened was ... interesting, to say in the least. They seemed to be trying to block what had happened from their minds.

Sofia went straight to her room, but Laura and Julian proceeded to find Cess. She was in the common room, bent over a text book on the coffee table. Dess was with her, banging her head up and down, saying single words in between each bang.

"I-" _bang_ "freakin'-"_bang_ "hate-"_bang _"Algebra." With a final bang, she sent the books flying off the table. Cess closed her text book and threw it onto the pile on the floor.

"Me too, it's so hard. I mean, this stuff could kill baby animals." Cess said.

Dess, now rubbing her head added, "It's so hard that it could make you give up the will to live." Cess nodded in agreement, but then saw Laura and Julian standing in the doorway. She hopped up, a refreshed smile on her face.

"Hi! What happened? Are you okay? Where's Sofia?" An idea occurred to her, pulling her smile away and replaced it with a characteristic worried expression. "Ohmigod! You didn't kill her did you? Ohmigod, oh god oh god oh god. We're gonna be in so much trouble."

"Calm it, Cess. She's not dead – she just went to sulk." Julian said. His words brought Cess major relief – she seemed to be about to have a mental breakdown. Then again, maybe it was just the algebra homework getting to her.

Speaking of algebra, Dess lifted her head, weakly from the table. "Hey. So, you two still alive? And ya don't wanna kill each other? And are any of you good at algebra? Because we suck at it."

"I am." Laura jumped over the pile of fallen text books, picking one up during her descent. She sat down on the floor next to Dess and then started explaining things. As she went on, a confused expression settled onto her face.

"I don't mean to sound dumb or anything, but ... what?" Dess said somewhat unintellginetly, after Laura had finished her explanation. Laura sighed, seemingly searching for a simpler way to explain it.

"Whatever. Thanks Laura. I'm beat. I'm gonna go to bed now. See ya." She gathered her books into a pile and cradled them with one arm and waved with the other.

Cess also made her excuse to leave. "I'm ... uh, gonna see how Sooraya is. See if her flu has gotten any better." She ran out of the room, leaving them alone with a big pile of algebra books. Not the most romantic location, but hey.

Laura pulled herself off of the floor and up onto the couch next to Julian. Slowly the edged closer together, lacking subtlety, though no one was there to see them. By the time that they had finished they were so close that they were practically sitting on each other. Not that either of them minded.

Julian put an arm around her and soon enough, they were making out. They nearly feel off the couch a few times, but that hardly mattered. They were so caught up that they failed to notice someone standing in the doorway, their face contorted with anger.

That someone was Sofia, and she looked so infuriated that she might explode at any second.

"Achem." She cleared her throat loud enough to wake the whole house, but they only just heard her. "Am I interrupting something?" She said quietly, like an angry bull storming at its opponent. Just with, you know, less snorting.

Julian wanted to say _yes, fucking yes! _But Laura beat him to it. "No," She said, getting off the Sofia stiffly. She stood by the side of it for a while, seemingly at a loss for something to do. When she finally made up her mind she exited the room with a curt good night.

Julian, also at a loss for idea's that didn't include ovens and roasted Sofia with vegetables, silently did the same.

**...**

In the middle of the next day, Laura, Cessily and Dess were sitting in the Institutes computer room. Apart from the tapping sound of keys on the keyboard and the clicking of the mouse, it was silent.

Cess was on facebook. No friend requests, no nothing. Bored, she scrolled down Santo's page, not really paying attention to the content. That is, until something caught her eye. Santo had apparently submitted a new picture. Clicking on it, she saw a badly angled scan. Squinting to see the small, messy print she read; _Reasons not to date Laura_. She gasped.

Cess vaguely remembered Dess recounting something about such a list, though at the time she had just written it off as Dess being, well, Dess. Now she knew that she had not been kidding. She gasped. Shielding the monitor with one hand, she looked around to see Laura, to check if she had seen it. Laura was entranced in some kind of Japanese sight.

Shifting her chair to the right, she stomped hard on Dess foot, the one that was always damaged and claimed to be innocent. It certainly got her attention. She yelped, clunky head phones falling off of her head. "_What?_" She yelped.

After waving her hands around like a lunatic, she clicked on the window and it shot up. She pointed to the picture. Dess, still scowling, inclined her head to see. The scowl quickly turned to astonishment, which then mingled with panic, giving her the look of someone who really needed to loo.

Dess eyes shot down the paper, skimming the list. The reasons not for dating Laura greatly outnumbered the reasons for going out with her. The argument against mainly sounded like _former assassin, can kill me, Sofia_ (Yeah, like _that's_ a reason, Dess thought_._)_ needs help _and the final reason was _so confused._. Whereas the other side of it was mostly _boobs, hot, _and _hasn't killed me,_ with a yet added onto the end. The odd ones out were _nice person deep, DEEP down _and _I just like her okay?_

"Wow, Julian really is shallower than I thought." Dess reaction was trademark. Cess gave her a look that told her that she should be worried. She immediately cleaned up her act.

"I mean, like, whatarewegonnado?" Dess whispered, fastly. Cess shrugged just as fast.

"We could tell Santo take it down?" she suggested with another shrug.

"Yeah, like that's gonna happen."

"Do you have a better idea?" Cess was now the one scowling.

"An idea? Yes. Better? Probably not." Dess whispered.

"Tell!"

Dess glanced around to Laura, whose loud music seemed to be blocking out their noise. "We could hack into Santo's account."

"Yeah! That's a great idea! Just how the hell do you hack into facebook?" Cess scowl had quickly deteriorated.

"I don't know ... guess his password? Press a few random buttons? Reason with it? Pray to Lord Cthulu? Oooh! You could hold the keyboard ransom!" Dess suggested as she went back to her own computer.

Cess was not entirely sure that all of these ideas would work, but she tried each one anyway.

**...**

"What the hell did you do?" Dess yelled. Laura, Cess and herself had gathered around Cess's computer. The screen was flickering on and off, occasionally making a loud _beep_.

"I think I broke it." Cess despaired quietly. In an attempt to try and remove the list, she had indeed broken the computer. On the Brightside, Laura was still unaware. However, the next time Cess saw Santo she would probably beat the shit out of him.

"No freakin' duh." Was Dess's response, leaning over the keyboard. On Cessily's other side, Laura was doing the same, though she was staring intently at the monitor. Maybe she was under the impression that scaring it enough would make it work again. Unfortunately, she was mistaken.

"So, uh, who knows anything about fixing computers?" Cess perked up. She looked first at Dess, who was now hitting the side of the machine yelling "Work! Work! Work you stupid effin' machine!" Like Laura's method, this also had no effect.

"A bit. Enough to tell you that you freakin' wrecked it." Dess replied, hands on her hips and she was biting her lip. Cess then turned to Laura, who was still staring daggers at the computer.

Instead of asking her for a solution, she said, "Laura? Helooo? What are you doing?"

Continuing her evil eyes at the computer monitor, which was still giving her the blue screen of death, and seemed adamant that it keeps it this way, Laura replied. "I am trying to see whether it responds to the so called 'death stares'."

Dess seemed rather amused by this. "Don't think its working."

Laura tore her eyes away from the blank screen. "Screaming and hitting it do not seem to be that effective either." She retorted, dryly. Laura sounded somewhat bitter.

"Guys! Break it up! We're all screwed if we don't fix this thing." Cess flustered, waving her hands around. They both stopped and turned their attentions towards the broken computer.

"Is it supposed to be smoking?" The two of them asked as they pointed toward the computer. A spiel of smoke was spiralling upwards out of the back of it. Cess flapped her hands around it for a while, swearing loudly until she finally managed to get the smoke to stop.

"Okay." Cess took a deep breath. "Now what do we do?" She fell back into her chair, open to any kind of suggestions. And by any, she meant any. Even the stupid ones that Dess had a habit of coming up with.

Stupid suggestions happened to be the only ones that they could agree on. "Well ... we could try reasoning with it. I mean, it got pissed when Laura gave it the Look of Death, so maybe it will work if we be nice to it?"

Cess and Laura considered this for a moment. " ... That could actually work." Cess said.

Laura nodded in agreement.

"See! Not all of the stuff that comes out of my mouth is completely insane!" Dess shouted happily.

Cess, who was afraid that they were veering off of subject again and really, really didn't want to be yelled at for breaking the computer (she had been doing it for a good reason, after all.), spoke.

"So, who's first?" Sliding out of the seat and letting Dess slide in, for better or worse.

"Uhh. Computer. Hi. Will you work for us, please? We can give you Sofia's head as a reward." The computer seemed to like this idea. In response – it bleeped. Or her foot – whatever you prefer maybe even her left arm. Please?" Dess conversed with the computer. However much Cess worried about her sanity, her whole reasoning idea seemed to be working. The computer bleeped once more.

Huh. The computer was as blood thirsty as Dess was. That was certainly a new development.

Shrugging, she continued. "I'm pretty sure we can get you her heart too, if you want that." The computer remained silent and blank. Maybe it did not like heart. "You don't like heart? Please computer, just work for us. We do not want to die at the hands of Miss Frost."

Still nothing. Cess was beginning to wonder if they were all going crazy.

"Idiot machine! Answer me!" Dess slammed her fist down onto the keyboard. Cess pulled her away before it got to violent. Or she upset the computer. "Okay, Laura's turn!" Cess covered up, grabbing Dess's shoulders.

Laura slipped into the chair, and remained silent for a minute or two. "Computer. You probably cannot hear me. But you are not working for my friends." She grasped the keyboard, pulling out the cable. "If you do not work in the next minute or so, then you shall never have your key board back."

The computer did not seem to like Laura, even though she was in possession of one of its most important components. Because it did not cooperate in the allotted time zone, she stabbed it.

... Shit.

"We're screwed." Dess said, staring down at the shattered monitor.

Suddenly, an idea popped into Cess head. "Hey! Maybe we should take up Miss Frost offer of a vacation."

Laura spun around on her chair, and Dess looked up her from her fingernails. They both said "What?" the surprise evident on their faces. Apparently neither of them listened in class.

"You know that camping thingie she said we could do. No adults. In the woods a million miles away. It could be fun. And we can't get blamed when we aren't here." Cess explained to them, both of them nodded their heads in recognition.

"Yes-" Laura said, but was interrupted as Julian poked his head through the door, looking like he was running from some kind of vicious wild beast.

"Vacation? What vacation? Vacation sounds good!" he said as he dashed into the room, closely followed by Sofia. So that was what he was escaping from. Slightly worse than a hungry wild beast.

"God, don't any of you listen?"

The answer was a No.

"Some camping trip she's letting us go on. It will be fun!" Cess said, as Megan and Victor came into the room, running from Santo. Victor's face was the picture of amusement.

"Hey did you see what Santo put up on-?" He grinned, but was brutally interrupted by Dess stamping on his foot, and pointing discreetly towards Laura.

"Oh this is going to be so fun!" Sofia beamed. Dess once said whenever she smiled a baby bunny died. "Just me, Julian. Laura, Cessily, Desdemona, Victor, Santo, Megan..." Her face gradually dropped as she listed the names.

Dess noticed Pixie, who had been hovering in the door way, characteristic grin on her face.

"Megan! You're alive! I thought Sofia ate you!" She yelled in mock happiness. Megan looked totally surprised, but because she was a positive person, she kept up her ever present smile and enjoyed the spontaneous hug.

She was surprised, but no one else in the room was.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Yeah, sorry about the wait. After about five months, it is finally up! This chapter is kind of long. But on the Brightside, I did really enjoy writing it. And thanks for all the reviews and faves and stuff –like I have said, it means a lot.**

**I am going to need to rename this – someone else has written one with a name that's similar. Suggestions, please. (And no, 'Dess is a Mary Su' is not a suggestion, thought if she is, then that is entirely accidental and I'm going to blame my sister.)**

**This chapter had the potential to be one of the funniest I could ever write. The style has also changed a bit – I think I have been refraining from making it too crazy and it all just burst out. From now on, please expect buckets of random - ness and death of the fourth wall.**

**Yes, I do actually know what will happen. I am not just writing a chapter and making something random happen. Puh-lease. It has a plot, duh. Well, kinda ... **

**Sofia will eat your brain! Kidding ... I think. Sorry people, she has to stay for the rest of the fanfic. This should be about three more chapters, give or take a few. Whatever, she's important to the story.**

**You know, I don't really like Pixie right now. I do like Sofia though. (And therefore her treatment in the story will slowly improve.) I found some old New Mutants issues down the back of my bookshelf. Strange ... I thought I 'lost' those. **

Chapter 11

Way too early in the morning, a couple of days later Cess and Laura trudged down empty corridor. Cess had a bag slung over shoulder and Laura was dragging hers behind her. They were about to embark on the camping trip that Cess had, more or less, forced everyone to go on.

At the moment, they were sending out the wake up call. Or rather, the yelling at everyone to get up and Laura showing her claws to provoke them. (This didn't sound even half as catchy, though, so they just called it a wake up call.) Cess and Laura reached their destination; Dess room. Knowing her reluctance to get up before ten in the morning in week days, they anticipated that this would be one of the hardest people to wake up.

Dess's room was unlocked, much to their surprise. She was always a very guarded person, despite all her jokes and silly comments. But then again, the inside could be booby trapped. Ignoring all thoughts of any horror movie she had ever seen, Cess pushed open the door, with Laura following in her wake.

Cess shook away any thoughts of slasher films she had seen recently, and opened the door. At first sight it looked like it had been ransacked. Cess was immediately worried. Dess had been here for all of two weeks, though her bedroom looked like she had been living there for years; there was so much stuff.

The room also liked like it had been hit by a hurricane, then bombed and glued back together again because of the residence lack of money. Rumpled clothes had been piled into the corner and books and papers littered the floor. Dess read a rather surprising amount for someone who had trouble spelling her name ("Desdemona is a tricky word! Don't even get me started on Trigiani!").

Maybe it was the amount of horror movies she had had to sit through with Laura, but Cess was worried that if she looked towards the bed she would not only see Dess, but should see a knife in her stomach. Telling herself that she was being stupid, she pushed away any thoughts of bloody knives.

Cess edged towards the bed. It was surprisingly clean around here; you could even see the floor. Dess was there, unharmed and fast asleep. While she snored, she kept a vice-like grip on the pillow, mumbling algebra equations in-between.

"Nyu plus X divided by tooth plus sixty-four equals how the fuck am I s'posed to know?"

Cess raised an eyebrow and exchanged looks with Laura, who had been digging through Dess's stuff, looking for anything that seemed interesting.

Stepping over a haphazardly stacked pile of half completed homework, she bent down over Dess and began to shake her shoulders, muttering "Get up. Wake up, Dess."

Half awake, Dess was pulled out of here mathematical nightmares and muttered into the pillow, though it seemed to be directed at Cess. "Got any idea what time it is? It's practically the middle of the night!"

Cess looked at her watch. "Nope, it's seven thirty. Rise and shine!" She clapped her hands together perkily. Dess remained adamant about sleeping for longer. She mumbled things that sounded like _it's really midnight, your watch is just wrong_.

Cess sighed, drudging up methods that she had last used to wake up friends at sleep over's. "Sofia is standing outside with a chain saw. She says if you don't come out in ten minutes then she will kill you."

Dess, in response grunted and murmured into the pillow. "Tell her that the chainsaw likes me too much to kill me."

Cess was really very tempted to start another round of head hitting, but instead sighed again and rolled her eyes. Striding nest to the bed, she grabbed Dess by the shoulders and shook her with a cry of "WAKE UP! WAKE UP! _Wake up!"_ Loud enough to wake the whole mansion.

Sitting up, Dess rubbed her eyes viciously. She gave a characteristic scowl while doing it. Yawning she said. "Okay. Okay. Jeez, I'm awake." Stretching her arms above her head, she stumbled out of bed. Somehow she had managed not to step in any of the many piles of junk that had accumulated over time.

Cess mission was nearly accomplished, all she had to do now was make sure Dess didn't go back to sleep. And get everyone else out of beds. She could just imagine how well that would go.

"Okay ... we still need to wake up Julian, Victor, Santo and Sofia. Nori and Sooraya have the flu and god knows where Josh went ..." Cess counted the names off on her fingers. Laura's stood up straight surrounded by the pile of junk she had been sorting through. She had seemed to have found gold; and was looking vaguely pleased with herself. What she had found was anybody's guess.

"Oooh! I'll wake up Sofia!" Dess was suddenly enthusiastic. Cess was suddenly terrified. Her eyes wide open, she said.

"I don't think that's such a-" Cess whispered, panic obvious in her voice. Eyes flitting towards Laura, Cess saw that she was standing against the wall, grinning slightly.

"Done!" Dess chirped oblivious to anything Cess could say, smirking, even though she hadn't moved a muscle. Before Cess could ask. Before Cess could even sigh in relief, Sofia screamed. Extremely loudly. Possibly even loud enough to wake the entire institute. On the bright side they wouldn't have to wake them themselves.

"DESS! YOU EVIL BITCH! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" Sofia yelled from her bed room. They certainly did not need to tell everyone to get up now – though most of them would probably be suffering from heart attacks, and it was also quite likely that they would have PTSD afterwards.

"Yeah, yeah. Get in line." Dess rolled her eyes, while stuffing things into a back pack with a disregard for what they actually were. She seemed pleased that she had managed to piss Sofia off that much, though.

"Ohmigodwhatdidyoudo?" Cess gasped, fast enough to make it sound like a blur. Her hands came up to her mouth as she heard a rather worrying smashing sound came from Sofia's room.

Dess looked incredibly smug as she said, "Oh nothing ... just put a bunch of zombies in her room." By the time she finished her sentence, Cess looked like she was going to either pass out or have a panic attack.

Luckily, she did neither. Instead, she pushed her face into her palm. Only once, though. And then she set off into a mantra of something sounding like Ohmigod, Ohmigod, Ohmigod, we're doomed!

When she had finally calmed down, with Laura's help, she yelled. "Dess!"

"What? Some people get wake up calls but she got an awesome zombie movie! Just ... realer" Dess reasoned from the bath room. As Cess and Laura walked out of the door, Cess was thinking of ways to reign in Dess's insanity.

Much to Cess disappointment, though, most of them would either result in her going to prison or detailed and intricate planning – two things that Cess was really rather not do.

**...**

An hour later, when Laura had wandered to wake Julian, and Megan was jittering around in the back of the car, providing a back ground noise that everyone else had managed to, more or less, blank out. Not that this was hard – five minutes into one of Megan's speeches an average person could fall asleep.

"Uh huh, that's great Megan." Cess muttered mechanically from the driver's seat. So far, they had managed to wake Victor, Santo, Megan and Sofia, all of whom were sitting in the car that Cyclops had, um, 'lent' them. From the speech he had given the, it sounded as if he half expected it not to come back in one piece.

Just when they were about to die of boredom (thanks to Pixie.) salvation came in the form Laura, Julian, Dess and what looked like, at first sight, a body bag. Because of its size and considerable weight, Megan immediately stopped talking and started worrying. Silently, thankfully.

Cess, however, preferred to worry out loud. "Ohmigosh! Is that a _body bag_?" Her eyes widened as she spoke, and her hands came up to her mouth. The events of the last few months was obviously starting to get to Cessily.

"See! I told you she'd think that!" Dess proclaimed to Laura and Julian, one hand resting on her waist and the other outstretched towards Cessily. They simply shrugged and walked towards the car, offering explanation.

"It's a tent, Cess." Julian said, leaning through her window. Resisting the urge to sigh, she replied.

"Oh. I knew that." She grinned as she whispered, covering up her mistake.

Dess chucked her one of the watches she had been holding to Cess and Santo as she got into the car. Cess, instead of catching it, let it hit her temple. It fell into her lap with a dull, metal _thunk_. Fixing it onto her wrist, she said.

"Oh great. It's one of those image inducer thingies Professor McCoy said he'd give me." Cess explained, pressing the buttons that was apparently was supposed to make her appear as she did before her mutation kicked in. "Unless we get arrested or something." She added, looking at Dess and Julian (She would have looked at Laura, as well, but those two were the first in her line of sight.).

Everyone fell silent as she finished, staring at her with barely contained laughter. Cess wondered if the projection of herself was turning red, because if she could blush, she would have been scarlet. Finally frustrated by the faint giggling, she spoke out.

"What? Has it given me two heads? Do I have a zit, or something? TELL ME." She huffed at them, her head hanging around the back of the seat. Dess, pulling her hand away from her mouth – it had been her attempt in vain to hide her sniggering – answered her. Even Sofia was laughing, and she hadn't smiled in days, let alone giggled. According to both Nori and Sooraya, she was a shadow of her former self. She had been nicer before and now she was obviously ... not. They had both wandered whether it had something to do with her powers.

"Cess?" She asked, attempting to quell her laughing, and failing quite epically. "Why are you suddenly a man?" She spat out the final word, and fell into a fit of hysteria. Cess's head whipped around, her neck retracting to its normal length. When she looked in the mirror, she screamed – she was indeed, now male. Strange, though she didn't feel any different.

Santo, who had been taking up two seats in the very back of the van with Pixie and Victor, suddenly yelled.

"Ahh! I'm a _chick_ now?" Santo said astonished, entranced in looking down his own shirt. Santo looked like a female version of himself. As you can imagine, everyone was really rather disturbed. He then began to spontaneously poke his new, um, assets. Those in the car who had managed to refrain for laughing were then sent into peals of laughter. Pixie fell out of the air she was giggling so much, she landed onto the concrete ground with a smash, but continued laughing all the way down.

"That's gonna hurt in the morning." Dess observed between laughing fits. Her voice was high pitched, and she was clutching her sides.

Cess, who was very tired being the laughing stock of the group (even Santo was laughing – and he had suddenly transformed into a girl. Though somehow, Cess thought that he was enjoying it a bit too much.), sighed angrily and let out an ear piercing scream, lengthy enough to shut everyone up.

It did quieten them down, but it also burst there ear drums and quite probably gave them a heart attack when Sofia's caterwauling didn't.

"WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? I don't wanna be a guy for the rest of my life!" Cess moaned up to the sky, rather than her shell shock friends.

Dess seemed to recover the quickest, unluckily for them. "Look on the Brightside!" she put one hand on her waist and used the other one to flick hair out of her face. "At least you can pee standing up now. Oh! And you can change your name to Cecil!" And then set forth into another fit of giggling.

"Oh, hey! What's _this _button do?" Santo murmured down at his watch. Because Dess had not thought up a female variation on his name, Santo was definitely still Santo. And after he curiously pressed the button he had been focusing on, he was now male Santo who looked like he would pre – mutation.

And he seemed strangely disappointed about it.

"Awwww. I can't scare Victor anymore." Victor made no comment – he was too creeped out to say a word.

Cess, however, was thrilled at the revelation. "Ohmigod. Which button did you press?" Cess interrogated Santo, pushing her face close to his with a ridiculous expression on her face – a mix of excitement and the look that people associate with asylums and prison. Why she looked like this, though, was a mystery.

Santo leaned back, looking positively scared. Silently, he pointed one of his thick fingers to the only other button on the watch. Cess rapidly pressed it, biting her lip. When she caught her now – normal demeanour, she smiled.

She liked being normal.

**...**

After many long and fairly boring preparations, safety speeches for Cyclops and one instance that involved removing Pixie from the top of the car, and a short time afterwards, from beneath it (Though they both confessed nothing, Cess was convinced that it had been Dess and Sofia's doing.), they had finally managed to get going.

"I can't believe the O*N*E are just letting us ... go." Victor said, sticking his nose against the window, watching as Salem Centre just rolled past outside his window. The people who glanced him did not even blink; being near to the Xavier Institute had prepared them for some things more than other.

"I guess Miss Frost must have done some kind of mind voodoo on them, or something. That sentinel dude was surprisingly nice to us. I mean, don't they usually insult your hair cut and then tell you to get back to class?" Dess replied, eyes focused on changing the song on her iPod.

Laura was driving; she had volunteered because she was the only one with who could legally drive. Many had expressed surprise at the 'legally' part, but they had let her drive anyway, because they liked their limbs. She was driving at approximately the pace of a snail, and seemed to be dedicating a lot of energy to keeping the half a mile an hour speed.

That was until they hit the freeway. _Going from inches an hour to three hundred miles an hour must not be good for your stomach, _Cess thought. Though she wouldn't know, she didn't eat. But judging from her friend's faces, all of whom looked like they were dying a slow, horrible death at a horribly fast speed.

"Laura! SPEED LIMIT!" Julian yelled, grabbing onto whatever he could find. Dess had started to mutter don't panic don't panic don't panic from his side. Sofia who was trapping him on his other side, was looking more than a little queasy.

"What is a 'speed limit'?" Laura asked calmly. She seemed not to notice her panicked passengers, even though Dess was making a racket in the back; her tangent of don't panic had know turned into shit we're gonna die we're gonna die shit and various other variations on the combination. So much for her so -called advanced senses.

Dess's mantra stopped abruptly. She let out an audible gasp, and yelled. "Oh MY god! Megan's dead!" She screamed, in effort to make Laura slow down. However, Laura was not that gullible. She knew that Dess had just pushed her under the seat. She simply kept her pace of way too fast.

Cess, however, seemed to have thought of a better solution. "Laura you're going too fast. We're going to get arrested, or something. Jail is boring. Just ask Dess!" Cess exclaimed, as Laura slew down to a legal – and healthy - speed.

Dess, who had apparently given up the illusion that they were all going to die, put her hand on her chest, possibly pretending to be offended. "I can't believe you think I went to prison! I did not go to prison! Well, not recently anyway! I mean like, who can honestly think that I went to prison?"

Every single person in the car except for Dess raised their hand.

"Oh." She said, disappointed. Her shoulders slumped and she scowled. "Aww, thanks guys." She said, sarcastically, and proceeded onto sulk mode.

Cess immediately changed the subject. After some audible fiddling, she managed to find the radio. To people who knew what her singing sounded like, this was the worst thing that could happen next to a zombie apocalypse. (Which, now that they fought of it was quite possible if Dess remained in the kind of mood she was in now. When they conferred on the issue they decided to bribe her with ice cream. If Alani hadn't eaten it all, that is.)

"Oooh, I love this song!" She squealed as a high pitched Justin Bieber song came on.

"Ugh, I _hate _this song." Dess groaned, turning the volume of her iPod up to full volume. Pretty much everyone was in agreement with Dess, except from Pixie, who was still residing under the seat. Her position may have been very uncomfortable, but at least there wasn't gum on the underside of the seat.

Cess started humming the tune of the song. Dess and the other passengers grumbled some things about their ears bleeding and such things. With the exception of Laura, who merely stayed silent driving, concentrating on keeping a pace a little bit faster than the speed of an elderly snail.

But then she started singing. Cess may have been one of the nicest people you could ever meet (well, if you asked anyone but Wallflower. But her opinion hardly mattered because she was 'pushing up daisies', now.), but if there was one thing she couldn't do it was sing. When she opened her mouth, it sounded like an alarm clock on Monday morning. Just ten thousand times worse.

Also, it was a Justin Beiber song. It would be a miracle if they finished the song without someone needing medical attention.

Or at least, this seemed to be what the passengers thought; Pixie appeared to be praying for her life in welsh, Dess was curled up in a ball and had resumed her mantra of oh we are going to die going to die dead doomed, Sofia had spontaneously grasped Julian's arm as if her life depended on it. (Which, considering her attachment issues of late – it probably did.) And Victor had reverted to a childlike state, and Santo was currently littering the floor in pieces of gravel.

Laura remained calm, though. The only reaction she gave to Cess caterwauling was a slight flinch - and she was supposed to have advanced senses. It went unsaid, but she had just gained everyone's respect for not making a sound while sitting next to the "world worst singer, next to Elvis," Dess had said when they conferred later.

Julian had begun to lose feeling in his arm – Sofia was clinging onto it for dear life. After having several failed attempts at extracting her from his painful arm. It almost felt like he had no hand at all – she was cuddling it so hard. (Foreshadowing.)

And then inspiration struck – in the form of a very bad plan. It was social suicide. Desperately, he thought of anything else that would prevent Sofia from glomping his arm off. "Ahh ... what the hell ..." He trailed off ... and then started singing along to the song which he had let Cess teach him begrudgingly. Yelling, really. But that hardly mattered; Sofia had jumped so hard that she had accidently freed his arm.

Pixie had appeared to have actually died this time – if they had not all been so traumatized they may have celebrated. Dess and Sofia, in a rare moment of friendship, were trembling together in the corner of the car. Laura had actually given a reaction this time – she had let out a little cough and flinched slightly more heavily. Though her reaction weighed more heavily on her driving. Yikes.

And after what felt like two centuries and a half, the song finished. Everyone in the car could finally breathe. (Even Megan seemed to have magically resurrected herself. Damn curse of the fairies, Sofia had thought.) They did not know what was scarier, Cess and Julian's combined singing skills, or the fact that they seemed to have been enjoying it.

"I just _love _that song," Cess sighed and leaned back in her chair, completely unaware of the trauma she had caused her companions. Looking into the back of the car, she saw her shell shocked friends (excluding Julian.) and commented. "What the hell is up with you guys?"

"N-Nothing." All of them not including Hellion stuttered, trying to hide their terror.

"You sing reeeeaaally well, Cess. Like, totally! But that doesn't mean you ever have to do it again. Like, ever." Dess grinned brightly, lying through her teeth, as she shoved the shell shocked Sofia away from her – she had probably remembered that they were supposed to hate each other. Cess beamed. "That applies for you too, Julian." She added flicking her head in his direction, severely.

They took a rest stop at a rundown convenience store about half an hour later. Most of them rushed towards the bathroom that the store had advertised outside, as if it was some kind of large event. Though, from the looks on the faces of the desperate passengers, you could tell that they thought it was.

After most of the students had rushed towards the respective bathrooms, the only people left in the deserted shop were Cess and Laura. Well, and the greasy looking cashier, who was checking them out without a hint of subtlety. They ignored him, though – sifting through worthless merchandise to find food and things that they would need on their trip.

Because this store was located exactly in the middle of nowhere many of the crucial items they needed were not available.

"Cessily," Laura said, picking through some busted cans of mixed vegetables that had probably gone off several years ago. "Is it normal to want to push ... _ someone _that ... you dislike ... off of a cliff?" Laura enquired, pawing through a rack of dusty magazines, without much interest.

Cess was shocked at the bluntness of the statement but had expected nothing else, so she automatically said, "Is it Julian?" sounding somewhat worried. Laura looked slightly taken aback.

"N-No ... It is ... Sofia." Laura admitted, haltingly in whispers. She looked around, despite the fact that she could probably hear anyone coming from a mile and a half away. The sleazy looking cashier did not seem to notice them, nor did he seem to care. And everyone else had retired to the bathrooms.

Or almost everyone it seemed, because out of nowhere Dess appeared. She had the kind of grin on her face that one would attribute to a psycho who had just killed someone. "YES! It is totally normal! Totally, totally normal! In fact, I'll help you!" she said, sounding overly enthusiastic.

Cess wanted to shut her up, but she was bouncing around too fast. She did, however, manage to grab Dess's shopping basket – it had been filled to the brim with many useless items, like magazines and T – Shirt proclaiming that 'I have been to Mexico!" despite the fact that they were nowhere near Mexico. Cess speedily placed all of the items back on the shelf and returned to where Dess was misguiding Laura.

Laura seemed to be reassured (misguided is probably a better word to describe it.), and contributed a thoughtful "We should make it appear to be an accident." To the conversation.

The sleazy looking cashier seemed to be a little bit more concerned now that there was a high and seemingly psychotic valley girl bouncing around his shop. Though he continued to do nothing, apart from turning the pages of some dull and cheap looking magazine.

Cess waited until Laura and Dess had finished plotting Sofia's fate to stop them. "Okay, enough!" She yelled, doing some odd hand movements to signify that she meant what she said. She then turned to Laura. "Look. I know how you feel. Hell, I've wanted to push Lau- I mean someone, off of a cliff because I was jealous or annoyed at them or _something_. BUT THE SOLUTION IS NOT MURDER. BECAUSE MURDER IS WRONG AND YOU COULD GO TO JAIL FOR IT AND JAIL IS BORING JUST ASK DESS."

The cashier's hands were edging slightly towards the telephone balanced on his desk, presumably to call the police. It probably seemed like the safest solution to him. Misguided cashier, they're good people, really.

Cess now turned her wrath on Dess, who had been cowering in the corner throughout Cess's lecture. "DON'T ENCOURAGE HER. I know you don't like Sofia, but YOU DON'T HAVE TO KILL HER. Ignoring her will work perfectly fine, you know. And besides, you'll end up in prison and I will have to bail you out. (Again.)" She finished, Dess was about to open her mouth to object to Cess's prison comment, but then she realised it was true.

Before the fight could resume, the remaining members of the New X – Men resurfaced and staged an attack on the snack stand. Apparently, Cessily had forgotten to remind them to have breakfast.

After having bought most of the edible items in the store, and the cashier had been reassured that a murder was not going to be occur in his shop (also, he was making more money than he had in the last two years of roadside convenience store working.), the students left, hands full of flimsy paper bags.

The rest of the journey passed with little trouble. Well, little trouble until they got lost. It seemed to be no problem at first – Cess hadn't forgotten to bring a map. However, Cess had forgotten to read a map. Too embarrassed to admit this, she pretended to study it for a while. She puzzled. Where you supposed to read it from left to right? Were on earth were they, anyway?

She gave up after a short time. "I can't read this. It's in Spanish." Sofia silently took it from her, as she was basically the only one who could read Spanish – not that she would need her knowledge of the language, as it was a normal map of America. In English.

Apparently not to her, though. "It's French," she said, passing it down to Dess; who had often boasted in the past about her 'Amazing French Skills' – though everyone thought she was lying. She glanced down it, her eyes running across the page.

"German." She chucked it at Anole, and went back to her book.

He took one look at it and gave a half assed "Hieroglyphics," and offered it forward to Julian.

He took it, flipped through it and concluded "Definitely Dutch." Pixie buzzed over his shoulder and nodded vacuously. Either they had somehow caught Cessily's drift and we're playing along or they really were that clue less – because America didn't look a thing like Germany, France, Spain or the Netherlands. And they weren't anywhere near Egypt. Cessily would be incredibly amazed if there geography was actually that bad.

After everyone in the car had contributed something to the matter (well, apart from Santo. He claimed he couldn't read.), the damned map made its way back to Cess. She figured that Laura would know where – so she passed her the map hoping for some decent output.

"SHE'S DRIVING YOU MORON." The passengers reminded Cessily, though Laura excepted it. Attempting stealth and failing epically, the passengers all prayed for their lives. However, Laura took one look and discarded it. "You were reading it upside down."

"We are approaching Pittsburgh." She said, pointing at a road sign. Why hadn't they thought of that? Apparently their geography was fine, but their logic was faulty. They concluded that Miss Frost had been doing odd things to their heads.

Because they couldn't find a decent campsite, and because the trip had been so hap hazard that no one had remember to book one, they decided to set up in an seemingly deserted field, near a woods that was miles away from civilisation of any kind whatsoever. In Pixie's words, "far away from where anyone could hear them scream", she had said in mid freak out. This oh – so – smart idea was obviously Dess's.

"So basically ... we find a field, and set up there. But it has to be, like, six thousand miles away from civilisation, because if it's someone's land, then we'll get, like, shot, but some angry farmer or something." She had said, moving her hands in an odd fashion after Cess had finally admitted they had no place to go.

"... I have no idea why we even put up with you." Cess groaned after Dess had put forward the proposition.

Since they didn't have a better plan, they went along with it. After scouting the surrounding area for people and any indication that there was some property belonging to said people, they have it the all clear and set up camp in a nearby field. (Throughout the searching, Pixie followed in Victor's wake, hysterically muttering warnings about axe murderers. It was hilarious to watch, as she was in full stage panic attack. Victor consoled her after she got completely unbearable.)

Unfortunately, the troubles didn't stop there. First came the Tent Catastrophe (or, so named by Dess) – simply put, the instructions really were in another language. ("I think it's Portuguese ..." Cess puzzled to herself, as Dess struggled with the canvas in an entirely one sided war.), and this was followed by the Battle of the Fire (it had also been Dess to name this one) – in which Julian really wished for Match's company, and finally, the Tale of the Wild Bear – which did not include bears, only an apparently wild poodle. (As you probably guessed, this was named oh so anticlimactically by Dess.)

However, they somehow managed to find a solution to all of their problems (tent poles, matches, and dog repellent.), and about an hour later, all of them were gathered around a fire that Julian had managed to light with the wonders of matches. And, they had managed to calm Megan down, so she was no longer giving them all headaches with her constant terror.

"So ..." Victor started, as they had only been listening to the crackling of the fire before that point. "We should tell scary stories."

The majority of the group agreed that this would indeed be advisable, despite the fact that their entire lives (after M – Day, anyway.) had been scary stories. Sofia, knowing this, seemed to think that she had a better idea.

"Why don't we tell _secrets_?" She asked, sounding somewhat gleeful. Too gleeful, almost. For a normal person, it would seem almost frightening. But since no of them are normal, they accepted her suggestion just as, if not more, gleefully.

"I'll go first," She said, tossing the remains of a twig that she had been breaking into the fire. "Did you know ..." She paused, looking around to see whether she had caught anyone's attention. She had – Julian was curious to know anything she hadn't told him, Cess just wanted to know, Dess was going to use it as black mail later in life and though Laura wasn't really listening, she had the appearance of someone that was.

"Did you know," She resumed. "Laura used to be ..." She paused for dramatic effect. Laura, against her better judgement, was now intrigued – and slightly worried. Dess had subsequently lost interest, as her ghosts had already told her more than enough about Laura's dark and bloody past (the dead really liked to gossip). Cess, also against her better judgement, wanted to know anything Laura hadn't told them.

"... Used to be a whore."

"That was anticlimactic." Dess said, poking the fire. Julian kind of looked like he would explode. Cess was afraid of everyone's reaction. Laura, herself, though did not seem that bothered that another one of the secrets of her past had been unearthed.

Before she was able to testify on the statement, the words in Julian's mouth exploded out. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Sofia? You used to be so ... so _different. _WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" He yelled, probably alerting everyone (that included farmers who owned guns, mass murderers who were coming to get Pixie in her sleep and any other character that the author decides to shoehorn in.) within three miles to their location.

Sofia looked incredibly shaken for a few seconds, before reverting back into her haughty demeanour and sitting down hear the fire. Julian now turned to Laura, trying to get some verification on the matter. She simply replied "That is the truth" and turned back to the fire, as if it was something terrible interesting. (Sofia, strangely enough, was also poking the fire – she was wishing to burn herself in it, because she was so embarrassed.)

"Well," Dess butted in; she also happened to be poking the fire (the author would like to point out that it really isn't that interesting.). "My mom always used to say, when the going gets tough, the tough make a virgin sacrifice," She then paused to give the fire a final poke, "I nominate Sofia." She finished, keeping her deadpan tone throughout.

A silence covered them for a few moments, while they considered the statement – or rather, they mostly just thought how odd it was, and how very Dess it was. Naturally, Sofia was outraged and immediately suggested Laura for the sacrifice. Obviously, she hadn't listening to herself speak earlier.

"Fine!" She yelled, loud enough to give all of the Students, the famer with a gun and the mass murdered coming to dispose of Pixie while she slept a headache. "Julian, then! Julian!"

Sofia then sat down, and passed the role of doing whatever it was they were doing onto to Santo, who had for once managed to keep his mouth shut up until then. He suggested Anole, predictably.

And so it went on. Cess had had enough of it when she sent Dess to go and find some firewood, despite the fact that they were in no way short of it. She hoped that if she sent away the source of the chaos, then it would die down. Dess attempted to put up a fight, but Cessily gave her a look so stern that she was scared to stay.

Making a very loud exit into the woods, Dess started to grab fallen branches of the forest floor, because all of Pixie's talk of Serial Killers had freaked her out more than she liked to admit. So she was hardly surprised when she did the clichéd act of stepping on a branch and screaming, thinking that it was one of the imaginary (or so she hoped) murderers.

However, they may not have been as imaginary as she hoped when she heard a faint chuckle. Resisting the urge to flee back to the campsite and hide behind an large rock, she brandished the most sharp branch of which she had collected and attempted to think of a witty comment to greet the murderer/whoever it was who thought her antics were funny with.

"You know, if you really want to kill me and cut me up and whatever it is that you serial killers do, you should really introduce yourself first." Sure, it was not that witty (actually, it was hardly witty at all), but it was all she could think of in short notice. There was also the fact of whether she was talking to herself or not.

As it turned out, apparently not. Stepping out of the shadows was a man dressed in a very expensive suit, with a nose so pointed that it could probably be used as a cheese knife, pizza cutter or any of piece of crockery that had a sharp edge and greasy looking black hair. He was chuckling, as if he had just found something very good to eat or won the lottery or something.

"Well ... I really wasn't expecting to see you here." Said Cheese knife/Pizza Cutter/Let's just say it was sharp nosed dude to Dess, who was now looking as if she could smell something very bad. (Namely the guy himself.) "But believe me, it was an added bonus."

Dess appeared to be lost for words. After a long and uneventful pause in which Meat Cleaver nose was waiting for a reply equally as cheesy as his. "... Are you camping here, too?" She burst out, sounding genuinely curious. "Sure you have! You've been staying here for ages! Without a shower! That's why you smell so bad!" Dess deducted, before the guy could respond. It certainly wasn't the reply he had been expecting.

"No-" The man who the author cannot think of another nickname for attempted to speak, but like everyone else, was interrupted by Dess.

"Actually, I don't really want to hear whatever it is you have to say," Dess said, as she edged closer towards the man. "I know who your here to see, Bard. Oh, and you should probably find a better method of communication because I've been listening to you to on the phone, so I know what you want." She added, while she raised her foot up to the man now indentified as Bard privates and promptly kicked. "Which probably means that you should fuck of right about _now._"

It must have been pretty humiliating for him, being beat up by a teenage girl, especially in that manner. Dess was just about to stab him with her pointy branch she had prepared earlier when he realised that this probably hadn't been the best way to own back Someone's special attentions. He disappeared as Dess plunged the stick into his stomach, he disappeared.

Grabbing her firewood, which she had discarded earlier, she ran right back to camp.


End file.
